Corsair vs Crucial

[Knightwalker]

Have been looking at memory module costs, and in the past have always purchased direct from crucial, but looking at sites and constantly coming across corsair memory for lesser prices.
Sorry if the answer is obvious, but don't actually know, is corsair memory any good, or is worth paying the extra and sticking to what I know.

[jim]

There are very few actual manufacturers of RAM components in the world, most of the brands you see don't actually do all that much beyond slapping labels on and dealing with returns and so on (maybe oversimplifying a little, but the point is a lot of brands will be exactly the same stick of RAM underneath).

Corsair are a respected brand, a lot of people will only use Corsair. Are they better than Crucial or any of the other brands? Not sure. But then again, neither am I sure that any of the others are better than Corsair. I don't think it really makes much difference in the end.

If it's the speed you're looking for, at the price you're looking for, and the warranty suits you, then I wouldn't worry too much about the name on the label.

[Saracen]

I'd pretty much agree with snootyjim.

.... or is worth paying the extra and sticking to what I know.

That's hard to answer, not least because sticking to what you know involves peace of mind, and how do we price the value you put on that?

I have machines with Crucial memory and with Corsair (and others). I've never had any problem with Crucial or Corsair, but I'm sure you could find people that have, and probably with both. As snooty said, if you can get the right product, the right speed and with the right warranty at the right price, I personally wouldn't worry which of those it was.

[timread]

Crucial do fairly frequent voucher code campaigns but I think there aren't any active ones at the moment. You can still get money off by going through cashback sites to place your order with Crucial (e.g. the topcashback.co.uk rate on Crucial at the moment is 7.21%).

Their new Ballistix Tactical range is a good balance of price, performance, and module size (i.e. doesn't have massive heatsinks, which cause clearance issues with lots of CPU coolers these days). Also the Ballistix Tactical range has better latency than their Ballistix range (CL 8-8-8-24 instead of 10-10-10-28 - FINALLY, Crucial DDR3 with competitive latency!).

I've always tended to buy Crucial RAM myself as I get a good corporate discount (~25%), however on the other hand, Corsair's reputation is good, as is their pricing and performance. Just make sure you get a standard module size (they tend to call them low profile even though they are not technically low profile) for the above CPU cooler clearance reasons.

[shaithis]

Not much between them, although myself, a friend and a colleague have all had corsair XMS3 RAM in the last 6 weeks that had to be returned because it arrived faulty......

Still I would order it again but any more dodgy sticks and I will seriously be considering looking elsewhere.

[Sputnik]

I've used Corsair, Crucial and OCZ (as well as some cheapo Twinmos stuff) and not really had much of a problem. I don't like the OCZ stuff as much as I had to increase the voltage to almost maximum for the modules to get it stable.

I don't think you'll have any problems with either but, Corsair do seem to be cheaper at the moment.

[Curunen]

Don't crucial have a uk rma base, or am I mistaken? I know corsair's service is fantastic, but that would be a big plus in favour of crucial.

[Saracen]

Not much between them, although myself, a friend and a colleague have all had corsair XMS3 RAM in the last 6 weeks that had to be returned because it arrived faulty......

....

Interesting. I hope it's fairly isolated. I've got XMS2 in the machine I'm on right now, and it's been fine.

But it reminds me of hard drives over the years. Most manufacturers have had periods and/or ranges where they were the flavour de jour, and periods where they were to be avoided, or the reputation of to be avoided, at all costs. The nickname of Deskstar as Deathstar comes to mind.

I had this 'argument' with a friend a couple of years ago. He, and another friend, had all had bad experiences with WD Caviar Blues, and they won't buy them. I've had (and still got) several, manly 640's, and never had any problems. Similarly, there are lots of people that won't touch Epson printers. I've used them for photos since the original Stylus Photo, and had various other ones before that. Never had a problem. In fact, I dug out an old A2 Stylus 1520 recently, that hadn't been used for several years, and even that worked after a bit of attention on head cleaning.

My conclusion is that basing things either on personal experience or internet anecdotal evidence has, at the least, risks. Having said that, I still do it. If something's worked for me, I tend to trust it still will until I get evidence to the contrary. I guess we all pay our money and take our chances.

[Knightwalker]

The advice is much appreciated.

And thank you timread for the cashback heads up, as this brings the crucial modules nearer in price to the corsair. Will probably stick with crucial on this occasion as they have always been reliable for me, but if see the equivalent Corsair RAM at a mcuh better price, won't be afraid to give them a try.

Thanks again to all.

[Biscuit]

I have used Corsair (Value, XMS, MacBook Certified and the new vengence stuff) Kingston (Hyperx and value) OCZ (Platinum and Gold) GSkill (Ripjaw and Value) over a variety of different speeds and sized throughout the last few years and so far i have never had to send a single stick back under RMA.

Do i have a preference? Not really, as long as the brand is quite well known i just go for the best Value stuff to fit the bill. Fortunately at the moment, some of the Corsair kits are proving to be exceptionally well priced and they are known throughout the industry to be pretty reliable.

I find that having too much brand loyalty can be a bad thing in the PC industry, companies rise and fall in the blink of an eye so the best thing to do is exactly what you have done and ask people

[Pob255]

The only real negative I'd put against corsair atm is the vengeance, it's marketed as overclocking ram but it doesn't really overclock well, if at all.

However that said there's really little need for overclocking ram, the benefits are almost non-existent except in ram benchmarks and intel's move away from fsb overclocking to multiplier only overclocking means cpu overclocking is not restricted by ram speeds, making overclocking ram of very limited value.

So running vengeance at it's stock settings is not really an issue and the prices are low which make it good ram let down by the marketing.

[Saracen]

One thing I do try to avoid is mixing and matching.

It shouldn't cause problems, but it sometimes does.

So I try, whenever possible, if adding memory to a machine to use the same brand and type as is already in there.