Introduction and DDR2-5300 - DDR2-6400
We looked at how much you should may for quality desktop system memory back in March, May, and September of this year. We noted that DDR2 prices stayed at roughly the same levels but DDR3 - prohibitively expensive at the outset - dropped in price during each two/three-month look
DDR2 remains the memory of choice for most chipsets, so let's take a look at how the etail market shapes up in late November 2008.
Prices were taken from scan.co.uk, eBuyer.com, Crucial, MemoryC, Microdirect, and Dabs.
Bear in mind that the stated memory may not be the cheapest around, and September prices, if available for a similar set, are shown in parenthesis.
As always, UK-based HEXUS.community discussion forum members will benefit from the SCAN2HEXUS Free Shipping initiative, which will save you a further few pounds plus also top-notch, priority customer service and technical support backed up by the SCANcare@HEXUS forum. Crucial, too, offers free delivery and does so on all purchases.
Lastly, HEXUS does not receive any kind of commission or kickback from the links; they're listed for your benefit only.
DDR2 - 667MHz (PC5300/5400)
The bread-and-butter memory that's used in a wide range of budget-to-mid-range systems. Pricing is wonderfully low, so, please, do your PC(s) a favour and fill those slots!
2GB kits (2x 1GB sticks) - everyone should have at 2GB in their systems, at the very least.
Corsair Value Select PC5300 - CL5 - 1.8V - no heatspreaders - £19.95 @ Scan.co.uk (£26.32)
4GB kits (2x 2GB sticks) - perfect for resource-hungry Microsoft Vista, and the minimum that we would recommend to a 'power-user', given the price of current DDR2.
Corsair Value Select PC-5300 - CL5 - 1.8V - no heatspreaders - £39.82 at Scan.co.uk. (£51.69)
Big, big drops from September - both kits are down by over 20 per cent in two months.
DDR2 - 800MHz (PC6400)
DDR2-800 still represents a worthwhile investment for most readers. It'll run on the vast majority of chipsets and provides 12.8GB/s of potential bandwidth to a system when run in dual-channel mode, constituting two modules placed in the same-coloured slots on a motherboard.
2GB kits (2x 1GB)
Crucial DDR2-800 - CL6 - 1.8V - no heatspreaders - £21.14 @ Ebuyer.co.uk. (£28.38)
4GB kits (2x 2GB)
Corsair XMS2 Twin2X PC6400 - 5-5-5-18 latencies - 1.9V - integrated heatspreaders - £38.35 @ Scan.co.uk (£46.25)
DDR2-800MHz pricing continues to drop and now we reckon it's plain rude not to opt for 4GB of XMS2-quality memory for under £40 delivered*