Price Guides August 2003: CPUs, Motherboards, Memory and Video Cards
by Kristopher Kubicki on August 26, 2003 12:56 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Memory
It’s been a while since we posted much information on memory. The announcement of DDR500 (PC4000) came and went a few weeks ago. The mostly universal “who cares” followed shortly afterward.
Indeed, motherboards have been ramping up bus speed, so perhaps purchasing some of the faster PC3200 and PC3700 modules will result in an increase in speed, but remember there are several bottlenecks to consider. Traditionally, the marginal benefits of running DDR400 on a 333MHz Athlon processor do not justify the price. However, since the DDR400 standard seems to have solidified, a 512MB stick will cost you only 5-10% over DDR333 sticks.
Those with 865PE motherboards might be able to clock the bus up enough to make use of DDR500, but for most, DDR400 should suffice. Do keep in mind that both Intel and AMD systems can take advantage of dual channel memory. Purchasing two 256MB sticks will increase performance about 5% over the purchase of one 512MB stick.
PC3200 Value memory from Corsair, Crucial, Kingston and Samsung all seem priced in the $95 range for 512MB sticks. Better timed memory can squeeze slightly higher performance but you will probably end up paying around $140 per stick of 512MB PC3200. In our opinion, the large markups don’t justify the end performance enough.
Corsair continues to dominate market share at some of the online retailers, but Micron (Crucial) and Kingston still produce enough memory and OEM sales to keep costs extremely competitive. Mushkin recently expressed to us they are slashing prices as well, which should result in closer competition with the other big retail 3 memory brands.
Kingston, Crucial and Mushkin have participated in several interesting online-only promotions that we are able to pick up from time to time. Keep your eyes peel on the forums as these deals can get you some really low timing memory at the cost of value timed products. In fact, we just got confirmation from Mushkin that they will be holding an OEM overproduction special Labor Day weekend on their website only. It looks like they will be selling discount 512MB sticks of DDR PC3200 (2-2-2) Green. For you memory connoisseurs, this special memory is produced on Winbond BH-5 chips. Special thanks to all those who emailed me with the information!
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Anonymous User - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
Monarch all prices at $30. I don't think it's a bug, since it affects no other merchant. If you follow the link the real price is revealed at the true rate (which isn't $30, trust me).I say it is no coincidence, and would rather see true pricing from honest merchants.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
Many of the prices from Monarch Computers Systems have the price listed as $30 which is wrong. This includes several Intel and AMD processors. Maybe a bug?KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
Hi #4, thanks for the input. I will add a bunch more NVIDIA cards today.Kristopher
Anonymous User - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
Hey in the nVidia based video card pricelist you forgot to mention the eVGA 5900 card its alot cheaper than the Albatron's 5900! The Albatron is 343$ at GameVE, but the eVGA 5900 its 249$!!KristopherKubicki - Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - link
I am going to delist Compubuzz.comAnonymous User - Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - link
How do you select vendors "with generally positive feedback from a decent number of consumers"? It seems that compubuzz.com has a lot of unfavorable feedback at resellerratings.com, yet they managed to grab half of the AMD CPU listings in this guide...Anonymous User - Tuesday, August 26, 2003 - link
Is there a good way to find low profile memory?