A-Data 4GB (2x2GB) 800MHz DDR2 $69 Shipped

S

SirKronan

Supreme [H]ardness
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Dec 7, 2007
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IN STOCK AGAIN!! Still in my system running strong, too!!! A GREAT BUY!

No more free shipping, but it's only $6.


At Fry's.com. I have two sticks of this in my 680i. Got it overclocked to 960MHz at 1.9v. Very stable and still cool to the touch. Well-built heat sinks. I really like them, and I haven't seen a better deal than this anywhere without a rebate. $69 bucks for 4gb shipped. If your mobo supports it, there's not reason not to get 4GB!! Vista 64-bit really flies for me. Fast load times, boot time, better gaming performance. I notice an improvement even over 3 gigs with my setup, so... enjoy. Should post fine in most new intel boards, as it's CAS 5 800MHz at 1.8 volts. It's not the most overclockable stuff out there, but it's fine for that price, and pretty decent for 2GB chips.

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/5475029


PERFORMANCE UPDATE:

I have a total of 8GB now running on my 680i board at 1000MHz, only at 1.95v, too. I am also testing a tad tighter timings, too. So far so good running 5-5-5-15 (vs. stock 5-5-5-18). This ram has been fantastic, so far. I've got the OCZ memory cooler on it.

UPDATE #2:
Passed all testing at 5-5-5-15 just fine. Also, they got some more in today, but it's already OOS AGAIN!! BAH!

UPDATE #3:
Back in stock, but no longer shipped for free. Sorry. Still a hot deal!

UPDATE #4:
It's also available from Newegg for $76.99 shipped. Same price, basically, but better for those of you that prefer to order from the egg.

Link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211188
 
I have a question though... Is DDR2 going to keep dropping?? Should I wait even longer?? Or has it reached its bottom. DDR isn't dropping anymore, it seems like now, in fact, almost seems as if price is slowly going back up... Will this happen to DDR2 soon? Or not until DDR3 is way cheaper than it is now? I am just curious.
 
SirKronan said:
I have a question though... Is DDR2 going to keep dropping?? Should I wait even longer?? Or has it reached its bottom. DDR isn't dropping anymore, it seems like now, in fact, almost seems as if price is slowly going back up... Will this happen to DDR2 soon? Or not until DDR3 is way cheaper than it is now? I am just curious.
Click to expand...

DDR prices stopped dropping AGES ago.

DDR2 is at its bottom. There have been recent reports that the DRAM manufacturers are pushing to significantly increase the price of the chips, due to all the money they are losing.
 
cesium666 said:
DDR prices stopped dropping AGES ago.

DDR2 is at its bottom. There have been recent reports that the DRAM manufacturers are pushing to significantly increase the price of the chips, due to all the money they are losing.
Click to expand...

Gee whiz... I guess I'll go for my second set today then.... thanks for the tip, cesium. These are good sticks. I would put them over PNY and they have responded to tech support emails I've sent them. I just had general product/performance questions. (they need to work on their website a tad, though. I get javascript errors in any web browser other than IE.)
 
Jumped on this on Wednesday when they restocked. This A-Data RAM is selling fast so if you want 4GB for cheap I would go for it. I got free shipping with my order also. Reviews on NewEgg are extremely positive for this RAM last time I checked. Great deal.
 
I have been using this brand of DDR2-800 in all my new builds at work for the last year or so. Of all the 2x1GB kits (>200) I have used, only one was DOA/bad. For a normally running system, they are good modules. I wouldn't know anything about overclocking them or trying to run them with tighter/faster timings.
 
I've currently got a 1GB kit in my rig now. They are very nice for what they are. Not the best overclockers by any means but if you are just looking to load up on memory, don't hesitate.

Also didn't see anyone post it, but these are the specs from newegg.com (who btw is at 89.99 to give you a comparison - 20 bucks more than this):

Model
Brand A-DATA
Model ADQVE1B16K
Type 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM

Tech Spec
Capacity 4GB(2 x 2GB)
Speed DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
Cas Latency 5
Timing 5-5-5-18
Voltage 1.8V
Heat Spreader Yes
Recommend Use High Performance or Gaming Memory
 
Good to see prices are coming down fast. Now we need to bring down DDR3 under $100 :D
 
With A-Data, is it true that you have to send your memory to Taiwan if it fails?
 
JohnnyNapalm said:
Not the cheapest I've seen it, but still a great deal on great ram.
Click to expand...

You've seen a 2x2GB kit cheaper than $69 with free shipping without having to use a mail in rebate? And at these speeds & timings (at least) with metal heat spreaders included? I'm just curious.
 
Just ordered my set today. I'll let you know as soon as I get it whether they really are the same sticks as newegg and the ones I already have.
 
BUMP just in case anyone still needs 4 or 8 GB of good, inexpensive ram without the hassle of mail in rebates, AND with free shipping.
 
2nd set arrived today. Way early. GJ, Fry's on shipping! It is in fact the same memory I bought on newegg. Same color, same heatsink, same exact product numbers on chips. Identical... I'm installing it right now... booting windows... we'll see how it works in the 680i ...
 
2nd set appears to work fine... 3D mark score went down by like 5 points... what the heck!!! I'll look into that. Shoulda stayed the same, if not a tad higher. Timings, voltages, MHz all the same. Might be a teenie stability issue ... more volts perhaps? I'm only at 1.9v right now overclocked to 888MHz at stock 5 5 5 18 timings - manually set, as auto throws them all over the place for some reason... Will bump up to 1.95v when memory cooler gets here. Anyhoo, so far so good. Now to look into that ramdisk for photoshop....
 
Let me know how thats going with 680i, I have evga680i and this is tempting to go for 8 gigs and finally install vista ultimate 64 bit thats been sitting here since last summer.
 
SirKronan said:
2nd set appears to work fine... 3D mark score went down by like 5 points... what the heck!!! I'll look into that. Shoulda stayed the same, if not a tad higher. Timings, voltages, MHz all the same. Might be a teenie stability issue ... more volts perhaps? I'm only at 1.9v right now overclocked to 888MHz at stock 5 5 5 18 timings - manually set, as auto throws them all over the place for some reason... Will bump up to 1.95v when memory cooler gets here. Anyhoo, so far so good. Now to look into that ramdisk for photoshop....
Click to expand...

I've never had a 3D mark score bench exactly the same every time... :rolleyes: Don't worry about it :)
 
chaikovski2002 said:
Let me know how thats going with 680i, I have evga680i and this is tempting to go for 8 gigs and finally install vista ultimate 64 bit thats been sitting here since last summer.
Click to expand...

Just got done playing 2 hrs straight of BF2142 w/very high graphics settings. No problems, glitches, BSOD's or the like. Everything seems to work fine with all 8GB installed with my slight overclockage... I'll have you know that once I get my ram cooler installed, I'm gonna push these a little harder and see what they're made of... (probably won't go over 2.1v - max 24/7 voltage will be 2.0, just gonna raise a little for benchmarking purposes)

So far no heat issues at my current settings, either. Passed orthos just fine. Haven't ran prime yet. I'll keep you all posted.

About the 3Dmark ... I would imagine that you'd expect a margin of error of +/- 50 to 100 when your scores are in the 10,000's. I just hoped it would go UP a tad with the extra memory to play with. I know most apps won't utilize half that, but I figured if windows has everything it needs, all other processes have all the RAM they need, plus full video card memory is still enabled thanks to 64-bit environment .... 3D mark would have free reign of all the RAM it could possibly need without having to clear any old pagefiles or buffers... Anyhoo. Still a respectable score. I'll keep you all posted with more overclocking volts. I don't recommend overclocking any RAM that you care about without a nice fan or cooler for it.
 
So here's my question:

On the fry's website it says that they are a (512 mbit) configuration 64 x8 right? Here on the Intel site for my motherboard memory configuration under Supported DIMM Configuration, for 512 mbit it says that the maximum size DIMM it can take is 1GB.

I'm thinking bout ordering this set to replace 4 1GB corsair sticks that only do 5-5-5-18 @ 1.9v, but this has me worried! Any ideas?
 
ZoNtO said:
So here's my question:

On the fry's website it says that they are a (512 mbit) configuration 64 x8 right? Here on the Intel site for my motherboard memory configuration under Supported DIMM Configuration, for 512 mbit it says that the maximum size DIMM it can take is 1GB.

I'm thinking bout ordering this set to replace 4 1GB corsair sticks that only do 5-5-5-18 @ 1.9v, but this has me worried! Any ideas?
Click to expand...

That ram should work on that board. It meets the requirements, anyways. It supports 2GB double sided dimms. You'll be fine. It meets the stock voltage, timings, and MHz recommendations of that board too. So far my 8 gigs are working good on my board, even though it's the 680i, which is finicky about 8GB of ram...

Edit:

I just ran memtest all last night and this morning - 4 total passes - all with no failures. All four sticks installed - total of 8 usable gigabytes, and that was with a slight overclock to 888MHz. This is good ram. I haven't ran memtest at my higher 1000MHz overclock yet, though. I'm a little nervous because memtest really stresses the ram a bunch, but I probably will when I get my voltages tuned a little better...
 
So I suppose now my question is this:

I'm running these 4 1gb sticks of corsair and they pass memtest with flying colors, but occasionally I'll get explorer.exe crashes in windows vista, and when I shut down or restart sometimes there will be referenced memory errors. Does that point towards the RAM? I've disabled all non-microsoft shell extensions except iTunes, SP1 rc refresh 1 installed, etc...

I'm thinking it's that 1.9v bullcrap on the XMS. They probably stuck heatspreaders on some pc5400 and called it 6400...
 
ZoNtO said:
So I suppose now my question is this:

I'm running these 4 1gb sticks of corsair and they pass memtest with flying colors, but occasionally I'll get explorer.exe crashes in windows vista, and when I shut down or restart sometimes there will be referenced memory errors. Does that point towards the RAM? I've disabled all non-microsoft shell extensions except iTunes, SP1 rc refresh 1 installed, etc...

I'm thinking it's that 1.9v bullcrap on the XMS. They probably stuck heatspreaders on some pc5400 and called it 6400...
Click to expand...

I really doubt it's memory related. I'm having some minor issues and an occasional Prime95 error running all four slots on my Vista machine too. I'm working on tracing it though. I'm going to adjust voltages and other settings and see if it's a CPU problem, NB, SB problem, voltage problem, or Vista problem with addressing the 8 gigs, even though it's 64 bit ultimate. Although the latter might be hard to track down...
 
I'm running these with a Q6600, IP35-Pro and Vista Business 64 bit at 340 stable...probably get higher but I've got other projects working now so fine tuning will come later.
I did nudge the voltage up to 1.90 and using loose timings.

This is a great deal!
...and no damned rebates!
 
mickster said:
I'm running these with a Q6600, IP35-Pro and Vista Business 64 bit at 340 stable...probably get higher but I've got other projects working now so fine tuning will come later.
I did nudge the voltage up to 1.90 and using loose timings.

This is a great deal!
...and no damned rebates!
Click to expand...

That's the best part. Free shipping and no rebate to have to send in.
 
A-DATA's ram with better timings is actually even faster than Crucial Ballistix and more reliable to. Too bad these sticks are only the reg ones but still a good deal.
 
Yeah, but for $69 and no rebate hassle... a nice buy. By the way. WHAT THE CRAP??? At 1.9v I was stable at 888MHz on this ram with all eight gigs. Passed memtest and all that crap for hours! I tried to push it back up to 1000MHz still linked. I tried it at 2.0 and it threw a few errors. I tried it at 2.1v, and it threw more errors, but still few. I set it to 2.2v and it started throwing HUNDREDS of errors. So I was thinking, what is going on with this ram??? I set voltage to 1.85v just for fun, it only threw 4 errors in the test, but I want ZERO errors. So I tried one last setting last night - 1.95v. WOW. Magic number!!! 3 passes of all 9 tests and not one single error! Can't wait to see if this improves benches at all..... I can't believe I've got this stuff at 1000MHz, still at stock 5-5-5-18 timings on only 1.95v. This is truly power efficient memory, and I'm running all eight gigs on my 680i right now as I post this.
 
mickster said:
Gr8 info!
Thanks SirKronan!!!
Which OS are you running?
Click to expand...

Vista 64-bit Ultimate. Runs great.


Also, I decided to post a little narrative about my overclocking experience with this memory that I had posted on the 8GB thread:

"I've had fun overclocking mine. Just so you know, I pulled some late hours to see if I could pull 1000MHz with these A-Data 800 sticks. First I tried 2.0v. I figured since it ran good at 888MHz with 1.9 volts, 2.0 would give it even more voltage overhead to run faster. Ran memtest and on the 4th test, 1st pass it threw like 4 or 5 errors. Figured maybe it needed 2.1v, so I changed it, ran memtest again, and it threw like 8 or 9 errors. I thought to myself, "Man this is some power-hungry memory.... " But I have my nice ram cooler installed so I figured it was safe to give 2.2v a try! Big mistake. Ran memtest and in like 6 seconds it was already up to 1300+ ERRORS!!! I screamed, "NO NO!! I'm frying my RAM!! RESET RESET AARGGHH!!! CRAP!!"

I decided that maybe by some freak of nature less might be more.... So I tried 1.85v. Ran memtest, threw like 3 errors. I thought to myself, "not too bad...BUT I WANT ZERO ERRORS!" So I tried 1.95v. My motherboard and BIOS have precise memory voltage increments, which helped give me more specific settings to try. Turns out that 1.95v is a real sweet spot! After 4 passes of memtest and ZERO errors on any of the tests, I set a new speed/stability record with my rig. Ran Prime95 with memory and cpu intensive tests, again NO errors, even with hours of runtime. YAY!!

This is the memory I have:

http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1264468

I have two sets of it and it's been a blast so far. This is the memory cooler I use to keep it cool:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835202003

Works great and looks sexy, but a little too much shiny brightness for me. I'm going to spray paint it black. It'll match my mobo's black PCB that way.

1.95v isn't that far above the stock 1.8v. And I'm still running it at stock 5-5-5-18 timings. 1.95v is quite low and good for a 25% MHz overclock, and I don't even have to sacrifice my timings. Now the test will be time. How long will it hold up at those speeds/voltages? And how will my 680i handle the higher voltage output to the ram? I think I'll be fine, because the 680i is known to have problems more in the 2.3v to 2.4v range from what I've read. And my ram is still cool to the touch, especially under the memory cooler which is quiet, and pushes a lot of air. Kinda hard to mount, but does a great job. (I put a makeshift clear plastic shield under it, not because I think it will fall, but just in case it does I don't want it to fry my 8800GT right underneath it.)"
 
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