I'm in the market for a memory upgrade. I need DDR2-553. There are several brands available at nearly the same price: Axiom, PNY, Kingston, etc., etc.

Is there a consensus that any brand is consistently more or less reliable than the general herd?

I've never really had any issues with RAM reliability, but I do tend to steer towards name brand memory such as: Kingston, Crucial, etc..

I usually look at the warranty info as well.. Why would I buy memory that has a 90 day or 1 year warranty when another manufacturer offers lifetime ? If you are not willing to stand behind your product with a decent warranty then why should I risk buying it ?

Warranty: Kingston offers lifetime warranty† on all memory modules, boards, and flash cards.

Terms of Limited Lifetime Warranty: Crucial warrants to the original end customer of its products specified below that its products are free from defects in material and workmanship....


There are other good manufacturers out there I only listed these two as examples.

FWIW, the only problem I've ever had with RAM is when the PSU shorted out and fried pretty much everything connected to the mobo. For my own systems, I always choose Kingston