unbuffered versus fully buffered memory for imac (1 Viewer)

[siobhan]

want to get 4gb memory for new imac 20 inch intel duo desktop.
toffs at apple store scorned my phonecall today about being able to get unbuffered 4gb memory for €100 online- (from crucial.com) because its 'unbuffered' ergo 'shit and slow'.

compared to their la de da kingston memory (apple approved) which is fully buffered and wont cause any problems in the future (and costs near €500 for 4gb if i get it from their apple shop)

so i looked on the kingston website and they actually reccommend memory for the imac which is very similar to the crucial memory and about the same price (€100) which is also 'unbuffered'.

ive read abit about fully buffered memory and i get the impression that fully buffered is for huge servers etc whilst a personal desktop just really needs unbuffered?

anyone any opinions/more knowledge on this area?

im using my computer to run adobe photoshop cs3, lightroom and prodution premium cs3 and will be processing shit loads of RAW photo images on the computer.

thanks

 

[Goodbye]

I never realised there were two different types of memory like that,
perhaps thats why I was having problems with ram in the past.
You think someone "in the know" would have asked the simple question, is it buffered or unbuffered you be needin sir?

Sorry I'm no help to you siobhan, but thanks for the new info. I've lost a geek star not knowing that one.

 

[siobhan]

what type of RAM problems were you having out of interest?
just so's i can avoid your problems in the future
did you buy cheap as chips memory online and just plug the cards into your pc yourself?


the unbuffered/ fully buffered seems to be all about the need for speed..
just dont think a personal pc has all that much need for the extra milli second of speed the fully buffered memory cards offer.
whereas a gigantic company server might have..

 

[Goodbye]

System freezes, crashes, kernal panics. All bad stuff.
Remove RAM, problem solved.

Bad ram can be trickey to spot. Also good to have the EXACT SAME RAM going in paralell. Best thing to do, is to do a screen grab of your system profiler, ram page and send that to whoever you are buying from to they can match the ram correctly.
Piece of piss to install in a desktop, dont know how easy it is to do in an iMan, but I'm sure its a piece of piss...