Price, quality, and quantity… three very important factors that guide you in the selection of your computer system\’s physical memory. The \”price\” part is now at an all time low. Just checking at www.pricewatch.com, I found a 256 meg stick of generic memory for all of $16.00. You can\’t get a better \”bang-for-your-buck\” product that will provide your computer with as much of a dramatic increase in system performance as an upgrade in RAM will. Now the big question… Who to buy from?

Two highly recognized names come to mind -  Crucial and Mushkin.

Click to see Picture of Modules

Crucial has long been regarded as \”the memory experts\”.  It\’s hard to dispute this, as they are the largest DRAM manufacturer in America and one of the top three in the world. A division of Micron, Crucial offers over 73,000 upgrades for more than 13,000 different computers.

Mushkin, on the other hand has always been a favorite for overclockers and their memory needs. Mushkin hand picks their memory chips and selects only the very best to put on their modules so that you are guaranteed to get the performance printed on the module - and then some. Mushkin is focused more on quality than quantity.  It is reflected in the high performance of their memory modules.

This review compares modules from both companies, testing their performance, tolerances, and price differences, ultimately showing that you get what you pay for.