Dual Kit vs. buying separately

whats the difference between buying the Dual Kit (512x2) vs buying two sticks of the same brand/type memory separately?

i.e. what was difference between the Mushkin PC3500 lvl2 Dual Kit (2x512) and just buying two separate sticks of PC3500 lvl2 http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProdu...146-296&catalog=147&manufactory=BROWSE&depa=0

Whichever's cheaper. If you're paying more for the dual kit because you think it's better than buying separately, then you're just the kind of gullible consumer the marketing people are aimming for w/ the dual kit.

but arent the sticks of the dual kit tested together as a pair by the maker?

i thought there could be slight differences between two sticks that were bought separately, and thus might lead to less overclockability....

jlo56 said:

but arent the sticks of the dual kit tested together as a pair by the maker?

i thought there could be slight differences between two sticks that were bought separately, and thus might lead to less overclockability....

Click to expand...

they should run the same, however if its not too much more and u're buying some oc'ing ram from an enthusiat site it does pay to buy dual channel, but not for the reason u think. I bought some dc hyperram from komusa. paid a premium for their top of the line pretested dc pc4000 hyperram. heres what happened... both sticks ran to specs (250),but of course who runs omething called hyperram at spec? in testing i found 1 stick was simply amazing,it ran to 290 at 2.78v. the other was a dog. it quit at 258..now technically since both ran to specs too bad for flapperhead. well, since i bought them as a matched pair the vendor agreed to work with me and find another stick that would run as close as possible to my wonder stick, even tho they never guarenteed it past 250! now that was pretty cool...so yes both sticks should run the same if bought individually, but sometimes for reasons u dont even think of it pays to go first class....

I bough some pc3200 from newegg and each stick individully runs fine at stock speeds and passes memtest. But when put in dual they get something like 9000 errors in test 5 every time at stock speed and voltage. They have no been overclocked and I'm not trying to since they are for a cheap system i built for a friend. The stick were bought seperately also.

sounds like a memory controller problem to me...

Nop it's my old NF7-s, I only had it for like a month and i could run memtest up to 225 on my 3200 and pass jsut fine.

i think as long as the ram are exactly identical, it should run dual chan mode, coz i got not errors with the 2x256 crucial ram i got b4

maybe a cas related prob. 1 stick doesnt like timings? try running both at loosest setting then work yer way up

They should go fine. As long as the chips are the same. E.G Older 3200 prob has bh-6 (good ) while newer 3200 prob has ch-5 (not good). If you run them in dual channel they should work. But if you try to overclock them you will find that the bh-6 will go a long way while the ch-5 wont go more than a few mhz. As long as the chips are the same, they should be able to overclock almost the same.

I don't want to run loose timings. I want them to run at the stock 2.5-4-4-8 at 200FSB that they are supposed to run and they don't. Well I already have an RMA number just gotta take the box down to fedex so i can ship it.

jlo56 said:

but arent the sticks of the dual kit tested together as a pair by the maker?

i thought there could be slight differences between two sticks that were bought separately, and thus might lead to less overclockability....

Click to expand...

I tend to doubt that "kits" are actually tested and matched. Browse these and other OC forums and you'll see posts indicating a difference in top-ends for sticks that came as "matched" pairs. The drawback on buying a kit, is that one stick may be great, the other may suck, and if you RMA, you'll probably have to send back the pair (assuming the purchaser is honest and won't swap in another stick and keep the "faster" one).

FuzzyBallz said:

Whichever's cheaper. If you're paying more for the dual kit because you think it's better than buying separately, then you're just the kind of gullible consumer the marketing people are aimming for w/ the dual kit.

Click to expand...

That's the correct answer. As if Corsair wouldn't accept an RMA for one stick because it wasn't "dual channel tested."

Even if it's three dollars, it's the principle, that three dollars means a lot to the company selling thousands of these.

I got a matched pair because it wasn't that much more than if I'd got them separtly. I also didn't have to deal with the possiblility that one of them was the last of one run and the second one was the first of the next run using differant vendor's chips due to availability or cheapness.

I'm far from gulible when it comes to hardware purchases. I made a sound informed decision based on my goals and needs. You can also get them separately and most of the time it'll work just fine in dual channel.

I've found it's just not worth it to skimp on RAM. Find somewhere else to cut the costs like a smaller HD or monitor.

same here... now a days, getting a dual chan is pretty much the same price as getting it 1 by 1