Ram recommendations, what should I get/need?

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Christopher MacQueen

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Oct 6, 2013
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I'm upgrading trying to figure out components. I was looking at the Corsair Vengeance 1866mhz but keep reading its not really worth it and timings are more important. What ram would you guys suggest while trying to manage cost not wasting money.

I currently have:

Gigabyte mobo: GA-990FXA-D3 (almost same as UD3 version, just less USB ports I think. Philippine version).
16GB 1333mhz brandless or kingston non heatsink.
Upgrading CPU to AMD FX 8320
among other upgrades

I'm looking to have solid ram for gaming. Not into overclocking these days. Trying to stay on the cheaper end. However due to location don't usually get upgrade options for higher end stuff newer then last 2 years. This month is my window of opportunity to upgrade to last least a year.

Also I'm assuming all DDR3 ram now is dual channel at least. Whats Quad channel and does my mobo support that? Better to get 2 sticks or 4 sticks of smaller size ram when my board has 4 slots?

Thanks
 
Solution
Tradesman1
Trying to look at things in a realistic manner, the 8320 is rated up to 1866 at 1 stick per channel and have seen very few that can even run 8GB of 2133 and be near stable, so 2400 is sort of out of the question, and doubt if you'll want to lose the 16GB aspect, so would look to a max of 2x8GB 1866 with your mobo/CPU combo.

Here's AMD's own freq guide

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/ddr3memoryfrequencyguide.aspx.

For your combo I'd suggest the Gskill Snipers in 1866/9

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231627

No sense in wasting money on sticks you can't run to full spec, many uninformed folks believe because a mobo advertises a freq that it will just run fine and dandy, they don't realize that...
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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Oct 30, 2004
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Good articles.....

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-scaling-gaming-haswell-richland,3593-18.html

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6372/memory-performance-16gb-ddr31333-to-ddr32400-on-ivy-bridge-igp-with-gskill

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell

The last one gives a nice review of impacts on gaming.

I had been buying the Mushkin 2133's which THG talks about in 1st link above as well as the 1866s both of which which were often same price as 1600s ....and, in high end builds, the 2400s which has the best timings in is class (10-12-12-28) which last I saw were available here:

http://www.ramexperts.com/mushkin-997122r-ddr3-udimm-2x8gb-16gb-pc3-19200-2400mhz-10-12-12-28-redline-ridgeback-1-65v.html

But they haven't been available for quite some time .... took me 3 weeks to score a pair and I had to go perty far up the corporate chain to nab them.

It's not so much the memory that us multi channel but the platform

1366 was triple channel
1155/1156 was dial channel
LGA 2011 is quad channel

RAM itself becomes multi channel when the manufacturer tests it and provides you a "matched set". Some manufacturers hand test every stick (i.e. Mushkin), others don't.

However, as far as gaming goes.... RAM is the last place I'd be spending money. Especially now....since the Hynix factory fire, prices are up sharply (as much as 50%). I spent an hour with an industry exec in the wholesale memory biz last week, and he indicated that they don't expect Hynix to return to normal production levels till January. Not so much, as ya might expect, from damage to production equipment but from the huge loss of wafers in inventory.

So Id concentrate on other system components at this time .... and perhaps think about RAM again come February.










 
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Tradesman1

Tradesman1

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Jun 5, 2013
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Trying to look at things in a realistic manner, the 8320 is rated up to 1866 at 1 stick per channel and have seen very few that can even run 8GB of 2133 and be near stable, so 2400 is sort of out of the question, and doubt if you'll want to lose the 16GB aspect, so would look to a max of 2x8GB 1866 with your mobo/CPU combo.

Here's AMD's own freq guide

http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/ddr3memoryfrequencyguide.aspx.

For your combo I'd suggest the Gskill Snipers in 1866/9

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231627

No sense in wasting money on sticks you can't run to full spec, many uninformed folks believe because a mobo advertises a freq that it will just run fine and dandy, they don't realize that the CPU has to be able to carry the freq and amount of DRAM
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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Chris..... I'd suggest that list the all the components you plan on upgrading (and budget)....so as not to limit your self to restrictions based upon what you have now. The least limiting thing on your current system is the RAM and if your thinking is that it needs a speed increase, the 8320 route as was pointed out above, is probably not your best choice.
 
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