Geil RAM .... wonderful stuff

[Tea]

Lateley we have switched over to using Geil RAM for everything. Since .. er .. about December last year, or possibly a little later. Geil market their RAM to the overclocking community, but we never overclock it, just use it for stock-standard systems.

Previously we used a range of stuff, most of it pretty good: Legend, Crucial, Samsung, two or three different flavours of Hynix. But there were always systems that just wern't happy. So we would fiddle about, swapping RAM, sending it home, swapping the RAM again if it seemed like a good idea, swapping out the motherboard and the power supply when all else failed. We learned that you could use RAM X in board Y and RAM Z in board A, but not the other way about. We got very good at juggling things around so as to use up a batch of RAM that didn't want to work properly in our mainline motherboards.

Alwys, we would try to buy quality. Sure, we liked getting value, but not if that meant taking risks. (Tannin lives in terror of Kristi's wrath.) Pay the extra and save lots of trouble was our motto.

But now we are paying lots extra.

We were talked into trying Geil RAM by a regular supplier who is always sending us stuff we don't really want. She is an optimist: sends us weird coloured cases, odd-ball broadband gear, anything she thinks might add to our weekly orders. We don't mind that as she is always helpful, and doesn't mind if we send it back again.

So Alice sent us this funny-looking expensive RAM dressed up in blue heat spreaders. We sold a few bits of it to overclockers - it was about 15 or 20% more than standard A Grade RAM such as Crucial or Legend.

Every now and then we would be having trouble with a recalcitrant machine and, in desperation, we would try some Geil RAM in it. More often than not, it went just fine, and poor old Tannin just had to figure that it was worth losing momey on the RAM in order to solve a service issue. So we started pushing it a bit: recommending that people pay $20 or $40 extra for a system in order to have Geil RAM in it. Quite a few did. After a while, we realised that the system return rate for Geil-equipped systems was significantly lower.

At around the same time, we started getting a fair number of KM400 main boards - that's the (relatively) new VIA all-in-one chipset that replaced the olld ... er ... KM266, I think it was. Same as the old one, but supports Athlon 2500 and up.

KM400s are fussy damn things. Fussy about RAM, anyway. (Why are they fussier than KT-400s or KT-600s?) We used to have a fair amount of trouble with them. But there isn't really much choice: there is nothing else in that market segment. The only other all-in-one chipset is the unlovely Nforce II, and they cost $50 extra. Not a viable option.

So we switched KM400 brands, switched again. Didn't seem to matter which brand we sold, they were always fussy about RAM. Get them matched just so, and they ran like trains. Slip the wrong brand in, and they would come back in after a day or a week or a month. Quite often, we would wind up replacing whatever RAM was in it with Geil (and to hell with the expense).

After a while, we got tired of buggerising about and made an Executive Decision. From now on, Tannin decreed, we would use Geil RAM in ALL our systems, and anyone who didn't like the price could buy their new computer somewhere else. Kristi and I had grave reservations about that — could the old boy still sell his weekly quota of new systems at those prices? In a word, yup. He proved us wrong.

Geil is the best RAM we have ever used. We have used almost nothing but Geil for the last 4 or 5 months, and not once has it given us problems. If a board won't run reliably with Geil RAM in it, it won't run reliably at all - or so it seems to us.

Yup: it's too damn dear, but we don't care. It just works.

I like juzt workz.

 

[blakerwry]

I remember someone who worked for shuttle recomending Geil a little over a year ago before I purchased my second shuttle bare bones cube. The prices and performance looked competitive, but i simply had and continue to have no reason to switch from Kingston or Crucial which are cheaper and run fine in everything I use.


Tea, since tannin is busy with... er.. whatever it is he does around there do you burn in/test these systems before they go out the door? a couple hours of unatended memtest86/prime95 in the shop could easily spot memory problems which would save work down the road and keep the customer's out of your hair.

 

[Buck]

I've pretty much stuck with Kingston, and it has worked out well for me. It would be nice to sample some Geil memory.

 

[Buck]

By the way, what is Tannin's weekly quota for selling systems?

 

[Mercutio]

I've tried Geil Budget RAM a few times. I've been neither happy nor impressed with it. Are you buying some premium variety?

 

[Bookmage]

interesting, consdering I had a friend purchase some of the Geil memory off newegg sometime last year. It didn't work in his athlon setup. I tried it in my athlon box and it seemed to run fine, until I benched it with some memtest and some 3dmark. Then it would give me BSODs. Swapped the ram with my mushkin stuff and the problems went away. He ended up ebaying the Geil stuff and I haven't gone back to it.

So maybe they fixed their problems or got better QC or have some ultra premo stuff set aside somewhere.

Like the man said...

"I've tried Geil Budget RAM a few times. I've been neither happy nor impressed with it. Are you buying some premium variety?"

 

[CougTek]

KM400s are fussy damn things. Fussy about RAM, anyway. (Why are they fussier than KT-400s or KT-600s?)

Probably because they are intended to the uttermost cheapy boxes, those in which you can't even contemplate to put an external graphic adapter because of the targeted price point. So, unlike the KT400 and KT600-based motherboard, destinated to computers a little dearer, manufacturers have to cut price in every possible ways. That means that they have to take shortcuts even on power regulation circuitry (use of lesser quality/rating MOSFETs) and signal-filtering components (caps and coils, or more accurately : lacks of caps and coils).

So in order to get a stable system on a KM400 board, you have to compensate the lack of stability-enhancing features of the mainboard with more tolerant RAM/CPU and often a higher-rating-than-necessary PSU. That's probably why you have to spend the extra 30$ on your RAM that you skimped on your board. Same shit differently. Since I switch RAM modules more often than I switch my mainboards, I tend to do the reverse and invest on the motherboard first and foremost.

 

[Tea]

It's blue. More than that I don't know.

 

[Bung]

Geil didn't always "just work". Maybe the chips hidden under the heat spreader are from an above average source for the moment.

 

[Tea]

Well if so, it's a long, long moment: we have been getting it for r six months or so now. It's interesting to read that other people here have (a) heard of Geil, and (b) not had the same success that we have had. For us, it has been a 100% positive experience.

 

[Bookmage]

well then good for you.
It's always better to hear it's working than not.
The sticks I got a hold of were also blue.
but, I like Mushkin colors better
I'll have to look around and see if other people had good experiences with it.
I'd actually heard Geil had compatibility problems, but nothing on performance or OC'ing.

 

[Bozo]

Have to agree with CougTek. I've almost always bought Intel motherboards. Never had a problem with any flavour of RAM (Crucial, Kingston, Corsair). Once these systems were setup they were forgotten about. About the only times I look at them is for normal maintenance. I guess you get what you pay for.


Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Tea]

So in order to get a stable system on a KM400 board, you have to compensate the lack of stability-enhancing features of the mainboard with more tolerant RAM/CPU and often a higher-rating-than-necessary PSU. That's probably why you have to spend the extra 30$ on your RAM that you skimped on your board. Same shit differently. Since I switch RAM modules more often than I switch my mainboards, I tend to do the reverse and invest on the motherboard first and foremost.

Well, not quite. It's not $30 for a better board, the total cost is a good deal more than that. (Yeah, I l know we are using different dollars, but even if we use US$ it works out to more.)

A KM-400 board costs about the same as a KT-600 board - but, of course, you don't get the video card. Next step up from there (in price terms) is an Nforce-II board with on-board video - but although these are supposed to be "better", their actual in-service reliability is lower than either a KM400 or a KT-600. Most expensive of all is one of the Nforce II boards with all the goodies (Firewire, RAID, whatever else seems to the manufacturer like a good idea at the time). These are clearly no better than the Nvidia on-board-video boards (reliability-wise), and possibly worse. (On the other hand, these also used to be the boards that tended to get the heaviest hammering: latest games, most RAM, overclocking, all that stuff).

(I say "tended to" rather than "tend to" because although heavy-duty gamers used to specify these quite often, of late we have taken to talking them out of the idea and recommending a KT-600 on the grounds that the performance difference is too small to worry about, the return rate is higher, and the extra cost achieves nothing bar extra trouble.)

Back to costings. So the actual extra cost of the non-KM-400 board is, in all reality, the cost of the video card - i.e., about $AU 100 retail, or about 4 times as much as the extra cost of the Geil RAM.

Added to that, it isn't only KM400 boards we use Geil for. We use it for everything. KM400s are the fussiest about RAM, but we have noticed a distinct improvement across the board. Indeed, our original idea was to just use the Geil for the bigher-end systems, but we nixed that because it didn't actually make any sense: the cost to us of having to deal with post-sale reliability issues is the same, no matter if it's a $1000 cheapie or a $4000 monster. And, most of the time, people buying modest hardware actually need the reliability more, as they are using it for real work, not just games.

Oh, one more thing. Bozo, I'd be quite happy to give Intel boards another go, except for one thing: Intel don't make a board that supports the Athlon, and the performance of the P4 family chips on everyday desktop tasks is woeful. That P4 2.6 that came in for a virus scan today, for example. If it didn't say "2.6GHz" on the front, I'd have thought it was a 1.5. OK, it was a Hewlett-Crapard, bit I was already making allowances for that. This was sluggishness on top of the expected HP ration.

(Too tired to preview - hope this makes sense.)

 

[Bozo]

I can't argue about the performance between AMD and Intel. But the reliability issue is what I'm concerned with. I've never had an Intel computer come back for motherboard, cpu, or memory problems. They come back for hard drive, software, or chair to keyboard interface problems.
The 3 computers that I built using Tyan motherboards with VIA chipsets really left a bad taste in my mouth. I ended up replacing them 8 months after they were installed.
I really wish AMD would design and build their own motherboards.
But, I've been asked to look into building a pair of computers that will run 64 bit Open VMS. AMD might get another chance.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Tea]

We actually have a higher problem rate with Intel kit. I don't believe that this is because Intel stuff is inferior (though it certainly gives us more trouble), I think it is simply because we sell so few Intel CPU systems- I don't think there have been any this year, for example - that we don't get to know all the ins and outs the way we do with AMD/VIA.

RULE ONE: If it works for you, don't change it!

 

[Pradeep]

When I hear the word Geil I for some reason think of an Israeli rifle of some distinction.

Ahh, never mind. It was Galil.

http://world.guns.ru/assault/as23-e.htm

 

[Tea]

When I think of some of the moronic software companies out there, Pradeep, I could quite happily swap you a few sticks of Geil for a Galil. :mrgrn: