Originally Posted by notabook

It honestly depends on the motherboard/chipset these days. Some motherboards you can get by with buying cheaper rams (thus saving tons of money if you are building comps en masse), others are MUCH more particular about the ram they accept and will absolutely go apeshit on your ass if you don't get the right kind. OK, so maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration but they will simply not work depending on how picky the mobo is.

For example, the Asus P5N32-SLI Premium motherboard is the single *worst* motherboard I have ever dealt with when it comes to how picky it is to ram. Most OCZ sticks refused to work in it (ALL gold editions failed, I only got one 'platinum' version to work). OCZ managed to fix this problem by 'flashing' something onto the ram after I sent them into OCZ after reporting the problem. At the same time, the cheapest Corsair ram worked flawlessly with the board.

Then like ungratefulninja said, if you plan to OC you need to consider another whole set of 'rules' when looking for ram to buy.