I don't believe that at all. Certainly when you buy a notebook from the ODMs, it will usually come with the 1:1 or faster memory, and they use the same components and maybe even the same manufacturing lines to build the products.

Maybe when a new architecture or line first starts this might be true, but the BIOS can handle it and they solve those problems relatively quickly these days.

Dell and Sony do it to save money. (Arguably, to be able to sell the product cheaper in the basic configuration.) Plus, if they order all the same parts (same speed, etc) they can get a better deal on them, and play the commodity markets using larger numbers.

I think you and I had a bit of this discussion before, when you argued that the difference between the 533Mhz shipped with the Sony SZs at the time, was not all that different from the 667Mhz memory they were capable of supporting. I didn't like the fact that they were shipping the slower memory to save a few dollars on a relatively high end machine.

And BTW, 800Mhz isn't really 1:1 with the cpu clock. I think it's 4:1 (or 1:4 depending on how you look at it.)

-David

There may be more to it than just a few dollars. Sony has been struggling with heat issues in its Vaios ever since the PCG-F series, and they may have found that memory faster than 533 mHz would overheat the machine and either unsolder the SODIMM sockets (which the GRV/X/Zs are famous for) or cause the power management software to shut it down.

You could be right, but I don't see the SZ in that list, and that's what we were talking about. The hi-end SZs sold at a relatively high end price. But it could be a lot of things, like power consumption, battery life, etc.

-David

And that was my point.

'Stability' is a 'for example', it involves all of that, heat, battery life, performance, shutdowns, etc.

My point with the SZ and here is simply that the cost differential between [then] 533 and 667, and [now] 667 and 800 is so tiny that if Sony could or whomever could use the fastest RAM available without any heat, battery, performance, or stability issues they would because they could then advertise, "We use the absolute fastest RAM available for the best performance" or some such and that IMHO would be far more valuable to them than the few cents saved by using 533 instead of 667.

ok, I got your point. :)

I just think the last paragraph of your reply is subjective and it's not really based on facts. It's based on assumptions. Still, you could be right. I just don't trust them as much as you do (based on past incidents, not just at Sony), and I think if they can save a few dollars in what really comes down to commodity pricing for the most part (except maybe for the high end SZs, because they were able to command premium pricing) then vendors like Dell, Sony and most of the rest of them will do whatever they can to save a few dollars. A few dollars saved can amount to a large share of the profit on a large run of systems.

Getting back to the original topic ...

If it were me, I'd buy the DDR2 800 memory, but it's not me and it's not my laptop. Even crucial claims it will work, and if you bought it from them they would guarantee it. I believe it will run fine at DDR2 800, but I don't have that computer to prove it, so that's my opinion. For all my other laptops, I buy the fastest memory that the motherboard and chipset will support. In many cases, you end up buying faster RAM than the motherboard and chipset will support because they don't even make the slower speeds anymore, and if they are available, they are more expensive than the higher speed stuff. That isn't the case here, because DDR2 is still the current mainstream memory product.

-David

On another board I am informed that although the chip set is rated for 800Mhz it only supports max 667Mhz so that's what I am going with.