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I'm wondering why some shops could sell RAMs at a much cheaper price. If they are simply taking a lower profit margin then that's good for me. However I'm worried as it could be like clothes where some are sold at a cheaper price because they are rejects(new but didn't pass quality control). Could this be the case with RAMs? if so how would I know if the RAM is defective? or not actually new?

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well you can try to see if the RAM is of good quality. what @david said is true in general, but there are of course method to see if the RAM is of better (or worse) quality.

  • try to overclock the ram at stock voltage. the higher it can go (with reasonable runtime under memtest86 with no errors), the better the stability at stock freq/stock voltage
  • try to undervolt the ram at stock frequency. the lower the ram can go (as above) the better the stability at stock freq/stock voltage.

even when the ram is unstable (randomly throwing errors in memtest86, not always the same position) you can try to make it stable by increasing voltage/decreasing frequency. but of course, if returning is an option, do it.

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Is it safe to overclock a RAM? won't it stress the RAM? – Stucko Dec 19 '10 at 23:14
yes. but usually overclocking without overvolting cannot destroy the ram physically. it may hang the machine, the ram may refuse to work at that particular frequency, but usually no harm is done. – bubu Dec 20 '10 at 1:44
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RAM is either good or it's bad. If you want to check it for integrity, I would perform a memory check on it, which can be done with many programs. I would recommend memtest x86. Usually when RAM is bad though, it is not recognizable by the operating system.

-Good Luck

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Make sure to run Memtest86+ for at least a couple hours. If you get any errors at all, then take back the RAM. It'll only get worse with time. – Earlz Dec 19 '10 at 5:13
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