PNY Optima 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 667 MD4096KD2-667

This is not the first time I have bought PNY RAM. In fact this is the 4th or 5th time I have purchased PNY RAM. I buy PNY RAM because it is one of the cheapest in the market and it is also one of the best performing RAM companies in the market. When I am building a gaming PC or a high performance PC I usually buy much more expensive high performance RAM, but for normal everyday desktop PCs this is the way to go. I just recently bought a low-end Dell PowerEdge 840 server that does not require that expensive server RAM. It only requires normal 667 mhz PC2-5300 DDR2 DIMMs. It maxes out at 8GB of RAM, so that is what I purchased. This RAM even performs great in a low-end server. It can handle all the common tasks of a normal power user, checking email, surfing the web, and creating documents. It also handles all of the tasks that a low-end server is used for. I use this server as my primary domain controller on my network since domain controllers do not need a lot of resources, 8GB of RAM is overkill, it only uses 1GB of RAM at any given time. It is never too early to plan for the future when it comes to computers and servers. So to sum it all up, PNY RAM works great in my low-end server. It performs just as any other expensive PC RAM would for almost half of the cost of the other RAM out there today. I will definitely buy more of this RAM if I ever need more.

I received this today and so far have basically no problems.

Both sticks went in easily and were recognized immediately. I did, however, get a warning message after I installed it that said “your RAM would perform better if both sticks were equal amounts” before Windows booted up. Odd, since both sticks WERE equal amounts, and were installed in slots directly beside each other as recommended.

A bit of research revealed that the problem is with 32bit Windows XP and its inability to read more than 3.23gb of RAM. I am not sure if this means the RAM’s dual channels are still taking effect (to make use of the dual channel, you have to install the sticks beside each other in matched pairs). Just thought I’d mention that. It is not a problem with the RAM, but rather a result of a limitation within Windows. If you have 64bit Windows, this might not be an issue.

All in all, a nice, inexpensive kit. There are a lot of people here complaining that their RAM was either partially or totally dead, and I believe them. However, I’d like to point out that before buying this, I did some research into the quality and lifespans of other brands to try to get the best deal, and found the same complaint across the board with pretty much all of the brands I considered before settling on this one. I believe it’s a problem of cheap RAM in general. For the price, you’re probably going to have the same amount of luck with other brands.

I’ll be putting an update here if anything goes wrong with this product in the mean time.

And finally, a word to the wise: your motherboard can only support certain amounts of mhz even if the RAM is the same type your board uses. Some types of RAM run at higher mhz than others and you need to make sure your board supports it before you buy. For the record, the packaging of this kit states that it can be used with 667mhz, 533mhz and 400mhz boards.

Did the job and are hard too find

I purchased this memory upgrade for an older desktop in use at home. I received it quickly, and in good condition. Installation was easy, and the detailed instructions included in the packaging would be helpful for someone unfamiliar with adding peripherals to a system. Overall, performance is good, speed of my desktop has definitely improved. I would recommend this product to anyone looking to boost their desktop memory capabilities at a (relatively) low cost.

I bought two pairs of the PNY Optima’s, one for my Dell E510 and the other for my Dell E521.

When I opened the Dell E510 (Intel Processor), I realized the “Channel A” memory slots (DIMM_1 & DIMM_2) were not next to each other but were physically separated by a “Channel B” memory slot (DIMM_3). If it weren’t for the white securing clips and previous matched pair of 512MB memory I might not have known what was the “Channel A” memory slots. So I moved the preexisting matched pair of 512MB (PC2-4300 533MHz) memory from the “Channel A” slots to the “Channel B” slots and installed the matched pair of 1GB (PC2-5300 667MHz) PNY’s into the “Channel A” slots. Once I started the computer, I instantly wanted to make sure the computer recognized the memory and went into the BIOS. I did this since I moved the preexisting memory AND I installed new memory with a higher clock speed capability (667MHz versus 533MHz). I had to trust that the PNY would work, but I had to verify the motherboard would work with them also. Thankfully the motherboard recognized all the memory and did not show any conflicts. And I resumed the boot in to Windows and no issues there either; it went straight to the Windows login screen.

When I opened the Dell E521 (AMD Processor), I saw that the “Channel A” memory slots were actually next to each other as I expected with the previous matched pair of 512MB (PC2-5300 667MHz) memory. As before, I moved the preexisting matched pair of 512MB memory from “Channel A” to “Channel B” and installed the PNY’s into “Channel A.” Again, I instantly went into the BIOS to make sure the computer recognized the memory. The computer did recognize the memory and so I resumed the boot in to Windows. However, this time on the Dell E521 it didn’t get to the Windows login screen. And after about 30-minutes of moving the memory around I figured I needed to see if I could even get Windows to recognize the memory. So I put the memory in how I wanted it, PNY 1GB’s into “Channel A” and preexisting 512MB’s into “Channel B” and booted into the Windows Safe Mode by pressing “F8” multiple times after the BIOS screen. Low and behold, Windows gave me a “New Hardware Found” dialog box and indicated it was memory. Therefore, I rebooted to get out of the “Safe Mode” and Windows went straight to the Windows login screen.

So now both PC’s are working wonderfully with a total of 3GB of memory and both are using the memory at different speeds (533MHz versus 667MHz) without issues.

Note: I moved the memory because the computer tries to utilize the “Channel A” memory first and having a larger amount of memory there means my computers would run “better” even though all the manufacturer instructions explicitly told me not to do it. In addition, what happened on the Dell E521 could have been narrowed down to just the addition of memory as a single change versus multiple changes like I made…maybe they knew what they were talking about. 😉