Kingston
We think that it's not worth to spend time and money to troubleshoot a computer just to find out that a cheap RAM stick is not working correctly. Specially in a real-time work like digital audio and video, today's high-speed RAM has to work perfectly or you'll end up crashing without any apparent reason. The few pizzas worth of cash initially "saved" with cheap RAM can end up in a very frustrating experience because troubleshooting flaky RAM tends to be time-consuming and therefore expensive.
We use only brand-quality RAM (Kingston, Apple) because:
- Every DIMM is individually tested - not just random samples of a production run
- Compatibility is guaranteed for every specific computer model
- Lifetime warranty
Basement Tales
Have you ever seen a cheap RAM bank go up in flames? I have, twice, and it was both times a scary experience. Needles to say the initial savings was less than the price of the computer that had to be replaced.
RAM problems are nasty because they tend to show up randomly so it's very hard to find out what's wrong. So you end up losing time, your face towards your client or lots of money if we have to rip the computer apart and run long test cycles.
RAM market is full of shady figures who advertise "major" RAM without describing what they're talking about. Basically all RAM is "major" because there are only few companies that actually manufacture RAM chips. But the production runs have quality differences and the lower-quality chips which barely meet specs end up at a discounter and the high-quality chips exceeding specs will be sold to premium companied like Apple and Kingston.
The worst example of a major (no pun intended) problem is cheap PC RAM which doesn't even meet Apple's quality specs which are much higher than of an average PC even if the RAM type is the same on paper. Another classic problem is mixing different manufacturer's RAM which can lead to problems even if all components are theoretically fine. Only matched and individually tested modules can guarantee seamless workflow with high-speed RAM. This seems to get even more critical over time as bus speeds go up and capacities get bigger.
