Welcome memory mavens and DRAM detectives to another installment of our biweekly memory price guide, in which we rev up the price search engines to bring you up-to-date buying info for a wide variety of desktop PC DDR2 and DDR3. Look for savings on your favorite module kits below, and see page 3 for details on how we find these prices.
Here, we are concentrating on DDR2-800 and DDR2-1066 modules. We currently track a variety of matched-pair DDR2 kits, including 2x1GB, 2x2GB and 2x4GB configurations. As a rule of thumb, we seek out performance/gaming modules with low CAS latencies and try to let the chart represent a range of manufacturers, product lines and vendors.
A couple of the prices we track in the dual-channel DDR2 chart fell by double-digit amounts in this issue of the guide, with the bigger of the two being a $15 drop in the tracked price of the Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 2x2GB kit.
With many Intel shoppers opting to go with the P55 chipset for Core i3, i5 and i7-based systems, dual-channel DDR3 remains a go-to memory type. AMD users, meanwhile, also make use of dual-channel DDR3 with the Phenom II processor and chipset platform. Popular configurations here include 2x1GB, 2x2GB and 2x4GB, at clock speeds from 1333MHz to 2000MHz.
There isn't much excitement to be found in the dual-channel DDR3 charts this time around, with only two of the prices we track having fallen since the last issue. The larger of these was another Crucial Ballistix discount, a $9 drop in the price of the DDR3-1600 2x2GB kit.
The emergence of the Intel Core i7 processor and X58 chipset brought with it a very powerful triple-channel DDR3 onboard memory controller, and many vendors welcomed this new architecture with a series of triple-channel, or matched triplets, DDR3 kits. This allows buyers of the Core i7/X58 platform to purchase three matched DDR3 modules without the added expense and potential risk of combining a dual-channel kit with a single module. In this market, some popular triple-channel DDR3 configurations include 3x1GB, 3x2GB and 3x4GB running at clock speeds from 1333MHz to 2000MHz.
While most of the price drops in this issue's triple-channel DDR3 chart were pretty small, one stands out and should come as welcome news to prospective buyers: a $60 drop in the tracked price of the Patriot Viper II Sector 7 DDR3-1600 3x4GB kit, bringing it down to $200.
In preparing this guide, we make use of the price search engines at Pricewatch.com and Pricegrabber.com to find a representative price for each product or product type. With each edition of the guide, we provide you with current data for the prices we track and list how much these prices have changed since the last issue. These prices, you should note, do not include any additional charges for shipping, sales tax, etc. So be sure and ask your vendor about those charges before ordering.
We receive no advertising fees nor any other incentives from any of the manufacturers or vendors that appear in this guide and we are in no way recommending nor endorsing any of these companies. Rather, this guide is intended to give you a sense of what the current pricing trends are for some of the more popular memory modules that are currently available. Since prices change frequently and personal needs and preferences differ, you should make sure to do your own research before making any final purchasing decisions.
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