Thinkpads Forum

Hello,

I am looking at G.SKILL 2GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Notebook Memory on Newegg's website. It's on sale for $269 + Shipping.

G. Skill, is this a good company? I never heard of it before. I am wondering if any of you are using this in your think pads.

Would appreciate your input.

Thanks
Srini

You can get one from IBM certified used - $119 for 1 GB
IBM certified Used

Or you can get from our own BrentPresley, he has got great feedback in the forum.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=38653

My bad, did not see you were looking for 2 GB modules.

sapsteve wrote:G. Skill, is this a good company? I never heard of it before. I am wondering if any of you are using this in your think pads.

It's not a well-known company, but at least several people on this board have purchased G. Skill's 1GB PC2-5300 SODIMMs for their Thinkpads and have reported that they work fine.

I've never heard of them (but that may not be saying much since it's been years since I've done any DRAM testing). It does look like that they have been around for awhile, specializing in overclocking for the gamer/performance crowd.

It appears that they are simply a module assembler in that I don't believe that they actually make the memories. They buy the memory on the open market, put them onto the module and sell it. It may be a memory module board of their own design or it could be a "reference standard". Assuming that they buy quality memory and/or use QA procedures to verify that the completed module meets industry specifications, then you should see no difference between their parts and other "name-brand" product.

Good find, think I'll order one too. That's cheap enough to get the 3rd GB - just what I need for running another VM

After upgrading from 2GB to 3GB, please let us know whether your laptops get faster!

I'd like to know if your memory still operates in dual channel mode after doing this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-channel_memory

Yes Dual channel but not as quick as if you have 2 ram stick of the same capacity.
My X60 is configured with 1x512MB and 1x1GB and it runs in Dual Channel. Ideall, I should go 2x1GB but too pricey for little plus.

jeffm wrote:I'd like to know if your memory still operates in dual channel mode after doing this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-channel_memory

It will be in "asynchronous" Dual Channel mode, which has effectively ZERO performance benefits. You only get synchronous Dual Channel (and a MAX of 5% increased memory performance) when you have a matched pair.

You only get synchronous Dual Channel ... when you have a matched pair.

That's what I thought too until I read the Wikipedia entry that I linked to above. Apparently it's not a dual-channel requirement, but some motherboards do require it. I'd like to know if the T60 is one of them...

Of course, Wikipedia could be dead wrong, and I wouldn't be surprised.

Search this forum.

This has been talked about before and one of the senior members was kind enough to link a technical document directly from Intel.

It is a chipset "limitation".

As is common with technical information, Wikipedia is wrong.

GSkill makes some really great memory, at least for desktop computers. A lot of people use GSkill memory for overclocking their desktops as they tend to overclock very well. I use GSkill memory myself for my 3.0Ghz E6600 overclocked desktop, and it runs great

I would say that GSkill is probably on the same level as OCZ...

I've got a 1GB stick of G Skill in my T60 along with the 1G stick from Lenovo. It works great! Ran Memtest+ for 12 hours with no errors.

I read a test on either Anandtech or Tom's Hardware where they tested various desktop value RAM and the G Skill performed very well.

I saw that $269 2GB deal on newegg as well. With it, my 2623-D8U t60p has a 1GB Samsung module (that came with box) and the g.skill 2GB for a 3070 MB total.
No install problems at all. My solid models are definitely faster, but that's kind of what I expected... I'll post if anything is amiss down the road.

G. Skill is quite famous in overclocking desktop ram (I am writing this from a machine usingthe G. Skill DDR2 ram).

Not quite sure about notebook ram though.

My goodness, the G. SKILL 2GB PC2-5300 SODIMM is now only $145 shipped on Newegg.com! It dropped over $100 in two months!!! I will probably buy one in another month or two when it drops below $100! So, what Thinkpad models has this stick been tested in?

Let's say we run a T60 running XP with a 2+2GB configuration. Given the limitations, BIOS will see 4GB, OS will see 3GB, T60 will be running sync or async?

bontistic wrote:Let's say we run a T60 running XP with a 2+2GB configuration. Given the limitations, BIOS will see 4GB, OS will see 3GB, T60 will be running sync or async?

Great question. I was wondering the exact same thing. Another thought. How does the G.SKILL 2GB 200-Pin memory stack up to the memory shipped with the T60. Is it just as good performance wise?

I've had this memory module in my T60 (200768U) for two weeks now, and it's working perfectly.

http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/PC2-5300

The footnotes