Thinkpads Forum

Hi,

Quick question. What RAM should I choose for my upcoming X200s?
I need a total of 8GB, so 2x 4GB.

What do you think of Corsair's Value Select (P/N: CM3X4GSD1066)?

Thanks in advance

That is going to be a serious wallet crunching purchase

That is true. Any suggestion on what modules to get?

Whichever ones you want really. It doesn't make that much of a difference - just try to get one with lower timings than the others.

I seem to always favour Crucial. Never had a problem with any of their memory and their prices seem fair.

Thanks for your replies.
What Corsair RAM would you choose? What do you think of those I mentioned?

Thanks

I notice Crucial & Corsair list 7 clock cycles for their memory, versus Lenovo at 5 clock cycles.

Would that make Crucial & Corsair memory 40% slower than Lenovo in performance? That is a big difference.

Has anybody seen or done a performance benchmark showing the difference in memory based on clock cycles (or brands like above)? (Has anybody tried the Lenovo 5-clock-cycle 4G in this laptop?)

Very interesting herm. Please let me know if you find any answers.

Here is one related thread via googling: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=346927, last posting claims the memories are all the same cycles but no real performance measurement.

Interesting reading! Thank you.

But now I'm actually starting to wonder if it's really possible to have 2x 4GB RAM in the Thinkpad X200s?
I've only found one thread on this forum where a guy states that hes using 2x 4GB RAM in his X200s, but he aren't answering on what modules hes using. Not to say that hes lying, but it would be nice if someone could confirm that it's actually possible. And if you got 2x 4GB, what modules are you using?

thj wrote:Interesting reading! Thank you.

But now I'm actually starting to wonder if it's really possible to have 2x 4GB RAM in the Thinkpad X200s?
I've only found one thread on this forum where a guy states that hes using 2x 4GB RAM in his X200s, but he aren't answering on what modules hes using. Not to say that hes lying, but it would be nice if someone could confirm that it's actually possible. And if you got 2x 4GB, what modules are you using?

Don't worry about it being possible because it is and unlike days gone by, RAM module selection for consumer products doesn't matter as much either.

Surely I can't be the only person with 8GB RAM installed in one of these bad boys.

A picture for the unbeliever. Repent, ye.

Thank you very much raiaken
Now I think I'll take a chance and try with the Corsair modules. Any comments on them?

thj wrote:Thank you very much raiaken
Now I think I'll take a chance and try with the Corsair modules. Any comments on them?

At this point, since this RAM density is so high, only reputable makers can get them put together with low enough defect rates for them to be profitable. Pretty much anything from Micron/Crucial, Corsair, Samsung, etc. are going to be more or less equivalent in terms of quality and DOA likelihood. Just look for the cheapest deal and make sure you run an intensive memtest86+ for about 24 hours on your chips once you get them to make sure they test OK, and you're all set.

raiaken wrote:At this point, since this RAM density is so high, only reputable makers can get them put together with low enough defect rates for them to be profitable. Pretty much anything from Micron/Crucial, Corsair, Samsung, etc. are going to be more or less equivalent in terms of quality and DOA likelihood. Just look for the cheapest deal and make sure you run an intensive memtest86+ for about 24 hours on your chips once you get them to make sure they test OK, and you're all set.

Again, thank you very much.
Can't wait to receive my X200s and RAM modules now

I heard from Patriot Memories that they are shipping much cheaper versions of the same 4 GB SODIMMs. Fry's should be the first to have it within two weeks.

Following up on memory speed concerns, from above, where Lenovo claims 5 clock cycles, and others 7, I find on more searching that Kingston has both 7-7-7-20 memory and 5-5-5-15, which they call Hyper-X, and Patriot, which above is said to be about to show up at Fry's, has both 7-7-7 speed and 5-5-5 speed modules in 204 pin size.

So continuing to be curious about the performance impact between the speed differences (CL-5 vs CL-7)? Is that why Lenovo is a bit pricier than Crucial?

(Does Lenovo's CL-5 4gb not work in X200's while others CL-7 4gb's do work?)

Is the patriot that is about to come to Fry's of their CL-7 or their CL-5 variety?

erm... can someone enlighten me why is there a need for so much (2 x 4GB) ram? what kind of OS/application would demand such high memory?

maumu wrote:erm... can someone enlighten me why is there a need for so much (2 x 4GB) ram? what kind of OS/application would demand such high memory?

Becuause we can
Joking aside - RAM disks to offload writing to SSDs is one very good reason.
Simulation and CAD can benefit from large amounts of RAM.
Of course this is true on 64bit systems.

maumu wrote:erm... can someone enlighten me why is there a need for so much (2 x 4GB) ram? what kind of OS/application would demand such high memory?

I occasionally have to run 2 VMs on my laptop as I use it for network app/protocol development and VMs are a handy substitute when network connectivity isn't available. 8GB allows me to have a 1GB scratch disk, 1.5 GB each for OSX and Linux, and leave 4 for the Windows host.

After receiving a private message, I was told that Google returns this post as one of the few threads about the X200s and 2x 4GB RAM. So just to let you all know, my 2x 4GB RAM modules are working just fine, and my X200s is lightning fast

I use G.Skill 4 GB modules which I purchased from newegg.com (PC-8500 is the fastest module for the processor) for $100 each.

maumu wrote:erm... can someone enlighten me why is there a need for so much (2 x 4GB) ram? what kind of OS/application would demand such high memory?

Games are starting to use quite a bit of memory now as well. I run 4GB on my current desktop and that is starting to get strained. For now 6GB seems to be enough but 8GB would provide a degree of "future-proofing" (a.k.a. delaying upgrades).

On my x200 74542GU running windows7 64, I use 8 GB. 2 x Samsung M471B5273CH0-CF8.
With the initial Hynix 2 x 1GB, the experience index was at 5.4
With the Crucial 2 x 2GB, the experience index was at 5.9
With the Samsung 2 x 4GB, the experience index is at 6.0 (same as the processor P8600 give a 6.0)

But beside the poor decimal number difference between 4 & 8 GB, the reality is different. I just got the memory a week ago, following my trip for a month to my family in Quebec city. Working with 500 pictures raw with Photoshop 5 extended 64 and keeping as many opened as you want and closing and opening by batch and following my automatism...that's real good. I do not have the crucial to do the back step to compare. I sold them on ebay during the samsung's waiting time from ewiz. Everything is fast and it passed all the test. The laptop runs better. I have it since April 2009 and it is rock solid since then. I have also a 80 GB Intel ssd since last christmas. I am using the ultrabase only to clone my drive every 2 weeks. It takes 20 minutes. The whole thing is rocking.

Frenchi wrote:On my x200 74542GU running windows7 64, I use 8 GB. 2 x Samsung M471B5273CH0-CF8

Can you tell me what BIOS version you're running? I've just tried 2x4GB or even 1x4GB setup and the machine won't boot at all with 1.10, 2.06 or latest BIOS...I'm using corsair CM3X4GSD1066 modules, which were proven to work with at least x200s...I'm wondering if I've just wasted my money. Thanks

Bios 3.14 6-23-2010

Did you tried your mem in another machine?

Frenchi wrote:Bios 3.14 6-23-2010

Did you tried your mem in another machine?

Well, I can only test it in T60, which is DDR2 capable, not sure if it is supposed to work at all with DDR3...?
But I've seen a few accounts of problems with x200 and this particular corsair memory. I've already contacted corsair about it, but I'm not holding my breath...

And by the way - OP was talking about x200s from the very beginning. Don't know how I missed that "s". Arghh!

doktorek - do your corsair modules still have the original memory manufacturer's decal on them?   if so, what brand and part number are they?

erik wrote:doktorek - do your corsair modules still have the original memory manufacturer's decal on them?   if so, what brand and part number are they?

hmm is that the sticker on a stick you're referring to? If so, the info is as follows:
CM3X4GSD1066
1076297 10292818

CM3X4GSD1066
1076290 10292818

There were also people pointing a different latency of this RAM in comparison to the oem installed ones. I've bought them because they were cheap, didn't expect they could simply not work at all...

I actually managed to start the machine with 1 of these sticks and start memtest86+ which gave 100% errors (don't remember which BIOS ver. I tried it with). They COULD be faulty, but somehow I belive that's not the case here, especially, that they didn't work for other people with x200...

Return them. They dont work. This is it. They don't serve their purpose.