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Solve : Need help on RAM?

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I was given a free Asus Desktop but noticed it lacked in performance. I'm more of a casual gamer and understand a few fundamentals of adding hardware to increase specs. One of the issues is that my Asus Desktop has only 1g on Ram and is pretty slow despite having loads of space and I started looking around to see what I needed. I found a couple ram sticks online and am not sure if they are compatible with my desktop.

Here's my specs for the desktop

ASUS P5G41-M LX

memory: max memory: 8192mb
slots: 2 (2 banks of 1)
1G DDR PC2-6400 in 1 slot

storage: SATA 2 - 3gb/2
9% used
91% free (320062062592 Total Storage)

chipset: Intel G41

video card:
Graphics Card: PCI Express t16
External Connector: 15-hole connector

Here's what I was interested in buying but wasnt sure if it'd be compatible http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/231050760173?rmvSB=true or http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/291187111991?rmvSB=true

Someone told me that they had Intel chipsets and ones that listed 'for amd chipset' WORKED just fine but I want to be sure before purchasing. If these are not compatible, It'd be appreciated if someone could reccommend ram that worked but isnt so pricey. I've seen a few that were compatible but were like $50-$60 for only 2 gigs
Surprised that you could get 8GB for just $20. The RAM Sticks are generic no name brand sticks and so you might end up with ok ram if not overclocking, but you could also get what you paid for in which the ram fails because its so cheap and no name brand.

I FIND it interesting that they claim that this RAM is for AMD only and not for INTEL. All RAM I have ever bought has worked between either with no problems with only concern being the correct stick type ( desktop/laptop/pins ), Ram Count per stick not exceeding the maximum count per stick SUPPORTED per slot/memory bank as well as FSB speed, latency, and voltage.

No name RAM like this is a gamble!   I have never bought no name brand where there is questionable quality.

I generally buy Corsair, Crucial, Kingston, or another trusted brand vs a mass produced with questionable memory chips ram sticks like what you found here.

So if your interested in taking a chance to save money and maybe have ok RAM you could go with this memory you found, however if I was you and I wanted to make sure I wouldnt have any problems as well as if there was a problem that I would be well taken care of with a replacement, I wouldnt buy these. I have returned flawed sticks to Crucial as well as Kingston and they took good care of me in getting a fast replacement that worked. If you run into troubles with these, I question whether you would get such good customer service and a speedy replacement.

Lastly I have run many systems with brands I have never heard of and no label no name sticks. Sometimes they run fine. But those memory sticks I never bought, but were parted out from dead low cost computers in which say a ECS brand motherboard died and the good PARTS are salvaged and the motherboard recycled and I stuff the memory into a new used part build and they work just fine. However a memory benchmark usually shows that they dont perform as well as higher end name brand memory of same speed and capacity.
Thanks a lot, I really appreciate the help. I've seen a couple on Crucial as well but they were just too pricey for only 2 gigs. I'm not by any means cheap but I know that 2gigs of ram is no where near the amount I've seen. I think I may look more into name brands to see where that gets me if it means getting quality product. Again, thanks for the response.The problem you'll have with the first listing is that your board only has 2 RAM slots, so you'll be limited to 2x2GB at most.
As DDR2 is end of life and hasn't been procued in a while you may struggle to find it at a reasonable price new, might be worth having a look around for some used brand-name RAM.  I can't speak for US pricing but I generally offload 2GB DDR2 sticks for around £10 so I agree with Dave that the links you've provided look too good to be true as that's ridiculously cheap, makes me wonder if they've made a listing error or the Ebay account has been taken over.  They SEEM to have a fair bit of negative feedback mentioning faults which the seller didn't resolve too, so I'd stay away in this instance - unless you want to take a chance, after all it's only $10/$20, but be prepared to write it off entirely.Notice how it says it only works with AMD CPUs.  It's crappy "high density" memory, don't touch it with a bargepole. Quote
Notice how it says it only works with AMD CPUs.  It's crappy "high density" memory, don't touch it with a bargepole

This is the first that I have heard of "high density" memory that so called only works with AMD and not INTEL. I have used both in Intel systems and no problems. The only problems I run into are when you have an (early) motherboard cutting edge for its time when it was released that was released in which it might state that claim to have support for say 800Mhz FSB, but you have to strictly abide to a list of memory modules that have been tested and approved for use with that specific board. This was many years ago when most were running 533 and 667 still and 800Mhz was new fastest available. I also have an ASUS motherboard that is also a oddity (early release) high end gaming type board that had 333Mhz DDR sticks in it and it only had 512MB RAM. It had 4 slots and so I decided to add 2 more sticks to get 1GB of other 333Mhz RAM. It wouldn't post. I removed the sticks and tested them 1 at a time and the original ram passed memtest in all slots as single sticks but the other sticks also 333Mhz and crucial brand didn't work at all in this system yet they worked fine in a newer Pentium 4 board. I then dug through my older ram pile and found 4 matching 256MB DDR 333Mhz sticks and put those in... no post. Tested all ram on another system and no problems. Dug deep into user manual info online for a 2003 ASUS motherboard and found out that there was an asterisk at the 333 and the board was a 266/*333FSB board. The * in the manual stated that they advise only using the 333FSB sticks that are on their support list. So to me it seems as though they found a choice few that may have worked with an overclocked FSB to 333 or something like that in which there were specific latency values that might have synched up. This motherboard was very strange in that it also required a P- 5V/12V connection from power supply near the CPU of the Pentium 4 for extra power to the VRM's. I ended up finding 4 x 266Mhz FSB sticks and stuffing those in and they worked fine. Those sticks were a mix of older low and newer high density but were 266Mhz FSB and worked and that was in an INTEL CPU system.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1957424/amd-ddr2-memory.html

http://www.ebay.com/gds/MythBUSTED-Density-FACTS-Low-Density-vs-High-Density-/10000000003939852/g.html

Any links to be shared that shows to avoid high density memory as a whole?The compatibility issue is partly related to voltage as well. AMD allows up to 1.7v as part of their chipset specifications but Intel only allows for up to 1.5v. So Memory that requires more than 1.5v is less likely to work on Intel-based boards.

In terms of density, AMD chipsets supported higher density DDR3 before Intel chipsets, but I expect they both work today, since those issues were limited to early DDR3 and DDR2 chipsets such as the Intel Core Duo series.

The bigger problem is the reason such memory is so cheap. The Memory chips used tend to be rejects/failures. This results in higher power consumption (this >1.5v for most of them, requiring AMD chipsets), lower performance, and lower compatibility.Thanks for the additional info BC. I wasnt aware of the different voltage specs between Intel and AMD for supported RAM. But as many agree here including myself, I'd avoid that cheap RAM as for its likely to be nothing but trouble.Every day's a school day, haven't come across high density memory before.  Noted for the future
The voltage point is valid too however this is DDR2 which was standard at 1.8V so shouldn't really apply in this case.  With DDR3 though I agree, DDR3 was always "meant" to be 1.5V but for the first few years most "performance" kits wanted 1.65V until Sandy Bridge arrived on the scene where it was highly recommended to stay around 1.5V, unlike Nehalem where 1.65V didn't cause any problems.  Contemporary AMD processors didn't really care about the memory voltage so 1.65V kits were still produced although from experience most good kits ran fine at 1.5V anyway.  These days you'll mostly find a mix of 1.35V and 1.5V being used with 1.35V sometimes called DDR3L.


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