Ram question

[rld1]

How much difference is their between premium sticks & other less costly ones? Or is more the chance of failure when paying big bucks.

 

Thanks,

[joey45]

Who knows what you get with the cheap stuff.

[Mugenjin]

Premium is better if you want to overclock.

 

But stability wise there's no real difference if you stay on default clocks. Either you get working or broken sticks ^^

Run some Memtest after installing to make sure they work before using the pc as usual.

[rld1]

Thanks guys. What's installed works fine. I don't don't overclock, or play with timings. Just wondering if the high price ones were worth some possible gain.

[Udat]

They are often faster. Look for Mhz, and the 5400-ish to 20600-ish numbers somewhere in their names. Not that I have a clue what the numbers really mean.

[Pyroflash]

Frequency is not important for gaming, frequency determines how fast the ram can traffic data. This is not important for an environment which mostly just caches static data and then spews it back at you when you need it. What you are looking for, and what really matters is tight timings. Timings determine how long it takes your computer to access data. Ideal timings are 9-9-9-24(9 Column Address Strobe(9 cycles to address a memory column and receive the first bit) -9 Row Address Strobe to Column Address Strobe(9 cycles in between accessing a row of data and accessing the columns within it) -9 Row Active to Precharge(Time between accessing a row until the precharge command is given to access the next bank of memory) and -24 Row Precharge(24 cycles between precharge and row access)) or lower. That will help your games access memory stuff faster. Generally, Corsair XMS series IC's are of really high quality, and also generally prove to be faster RAM. GSkill is a cheaper high quality alternative, and is still quite good.

 

Edit: the numbers in front of the ram Following the PC prefix refer to the maximum theoretical throughput of the RAM stick's data bus in megabytes per second. For example, my RAM, the Corsair Dominator GT PC3-150000, has a maximum throughput per stick of 15 GB/s. A higher number usually corresponds with increased performance, but you can scrape by with a lower number just fine. Anything above PC-8500 is usually fine, but DDR3 starts at that, so the point is kind of mute. As I said before though, tighter timings = better, but higher MHz is also a good thing. DDR3 1333MHz PC3-10600 with 7-7-7-24 timings is a pretty good balance as far as RAM is concerned.

Edited February 21, 2011 by Pyroflash

[rld1]

Pyroflash, thanks for the ram lesson, very informative. :thumbup:

 

Now I have to decide 6gb, or 12gb. (sounds like Dirty Harry) $100 difference.

I do very well with 6 only using half in A10-C. I would think twelve if needed for future stuff, but again simmers upgrade fairly often with more advanced components anyhow.

 

asus P6T_Deluxe_V2

Intel I7-975 @3.33 GHz

1600mhz dd3 (3x2gb)

win7 64

nvidea 580

Edited February 21, 2011 by rld1

[Pyroflash]

I made a very recent upgrade to 12 GB, just because I have been using more and more RAM, and running more and more applications at the same time. I used to have 6 GB, and if you can keep your application usage in check, it should suffice. My last set was a set of Corsair Dominator-GT PC3-12800 1600 MHz 6GB(2GBx3)RAM, and it was more than plenty fast. I would have gotten the 12 GB set of that, but they stopped making them, and I had to go for the newer(but faster) PC3-15000 hexa-channel set.

 

EDIT: I also had to upgrade my motherboard too, Asus told me that my old P6X58D Premium board wouldn't support my new RAM(Running at 1866 MHz) in a hexa channel set. On the bright side though, the extra $250 that I spent on my board has made the entire inside of my computer a solid red color, so I can't really complain.

Edited February 21, 2011 by Pyroflash