New
#11
I have to disagree just a little. The RAM might be made in two or three factories, true, but there are different grades of product produced in chip foundries. Often a manufacturer will sell product that doesn't quite meet the performance criteria of their product line as "seconds". They sell it that way with the intent that it runs at a lower performance level. An example is AMD disabling bad cores in a quad and selling it as a triple or dual core. It's perfectly legit, and most companies are up front about it. The same happens with all chips, and in most cases you know what you're getting.
With RAM, let's say that the main product has timings of 7-7-7-20. The seconds could be sold with timings of 8-8-8-24, with the intent that the RAM company uses it that way. In most cases, they will be, which is why you get different performance grades in RAM. The real problem comes from counterfeiting chips by remarking them, or some unscrupulous brokers selling illegally obtained factory rejects as good product. My company bought 400 Freescale microcontrollers off shore two years ago in an emergency, and not one of those chips was even the correct chip. They had all been relabeled and sold as something else. Lesson learned, cuz we got burned.
That is why you always buy something with a good warranty. I don't mind paying a little extra for some piece of mind.