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Buy RAM from OWC

I do wonder about Crucial; their prices used to be a LOT lower than they are now, so I wonder if it's worth the difference. I bought 2 gigs of Crucial for my G5 tower and it was only maybe 20% more than DMS or OWC at the time. But when I looked at the prices on RAM for my MBP, Crucial was about 70% more, so I ended up going DMS.

And it's interesting... I've used DMS RAM in computers at work for years without the slightest bit of trouble, but I just bought two 1 gig sticks from them for a Mini and they aren't working properly. Weird issue--if I put both DMS sticks in, once it warms up it will spontaneously reboot as if the power had flickered off. Leaving the fan on full blast prevents this, so it's heat related, but it's totally repeatable and totally specific to the RAM.

The pair of Apple sticks is fine, either single DMS stick is fine (in either slot), and ANY combination of the original sticks and DMS sticks is fine (regardless of which stick is on top). I can't think it's anything but a problem with the DMS stuff, but I can't figure out what the problem would be (heck, they're even using Micron chips, same as the stock Apple stuff). We shall see how DMS's customer service handles this--I've never had to test that lifetime warranty before!
 
I don't like Crucial because they (used to) use "dynamic pricing" on their website, meaning the price that each of us saw when going to their website might be different. The price you see depends on what websites you commonly visit or buy from, I think. If you cleared your cache and cookies and everything off your computer, turned cookies off completely, and checked the prices from Crucial, you'd likely get a different price than you saw before you cleared your cookies and cache.

They're tricky. They just expect richer people to pay more because they're less likely to say "No" to the purchase if the price for them was $5-10 more than it was for someone who was poorer. It's not like the rich guy would notice. He'd have to check the price on lots of different computers to see this trend of variable pricing.

I don't know whether they still do this, but I'm absolutely positive they did this 2 - 2.5 years ago. Just do a search here at MacRumours. ;)
 
Abstract said:
I don't like Crucial because they (used to) use "dynamic pricing" on their website, meaning the price that each of us saw when going to their website might be different.
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Yep...that's the reason I first started boycotting Crucial, even before their prices became uncompetitive. While they can't read the cookies of other sites that might be on your computer, they can see the referrer page if you clicked on a link to get there and they can see what else you've looked at on their site. Based on that, they gave you different prices for the same item.

You could surf around their site for a while in Safari, settle on an item, then open up Firefox and head directly to the same item and find a lower price for it. Ridiculous.

Don't know if they still engage in that practice, but I haven't bought from them since I found out about it.
 
Eew... I had no idea Crucial did that. Giving people a deal if they come to the site through a specific "coupon" link or such is one thing, but dynamic pricing I'm just not ok with. I really liked them, too, but their prices have gone up so much recently that I haven't been buying from them, anyway.

And on DMS--I got a polilte email this morning. They're sending me a pair of sticks advance replacement with a prepaid UPS return label. Now THAT's service, especially since their site says you have to call about RMAs (I can't, since I have a voice problem right now and can't talk).
 
looked at it closer and it ALOMST matches up but not quite, it is CAS 2.5 instead of apple spec CAS 3.0.
 
OWC has excellent customer service. Ordered a DVD burner from them, it was DOA. I called them and they overnighted me a new one the next day before I even sent mine back. Plus they paid for return shipping.
 
yg17 said:
OWC has excellent customer service. Ordered a DVD burner from them, it was DOA. I called them and they overnighted me a new one the next day before I even sent mine back. Plus they paid for return shipping.
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I ordered a Newer Tech intelligent battery charger for my TiBook batts in the hope that they would bring my batteries back to life, but with no luck. Quick e-mail to them resulted in an RMA and exchange for a Newer Tech Battery of equiv. price.

I order all my stuff from them now on.
 
Speaking of RAM, I just watched in horror as NeoOffice ate up all of my ram in my TiBook. :'(

Guess I'm going to have to go out and buy two 512 sticks. I must love this computer, it's a crime how much money I'm spending on it.
 
Topono said:
I'm sorry, I don't mean to hijack your topic, but I have a quick question about OWC. I found a (seemingly) awesome deal on 2 GB of RAM for the Power Mac G5. Here's the link:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/42DDR2PAIR2G/

Is there some sort of catch to this? It seems to be a great deal-it's at a lower price than both DMS and Crucial.
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It is a good price. DMS's full-priced RAM is about $20 more, but there's no need to pay that...OWC's RAM will be fine. DMS also has their EconoRAM for about $15 less than the OWC RAM, but the EconoRAM has slightly lower quality control and only a one-year warranty.

I'd say the OWC RAM you found is a very good buy.
 
Thanks.:) I was originally going to get Crucial, but their prices were too high and after reading the comments on their 'dynamic' pricing, I decided to stay away. I went to DMS and decided I should look for a better deal than their 2 GB kit. I looked at OWC's RAM, and the first thing I saw was this deal.
 
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