Cas confused conundrum

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KingDWS

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Jan 21, 2014
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I have been trying to find ram for my HP Z220 workstation. Right now I have the oem 4gb (2x 2gb) and I want to upgrade to 16gb (4x 4gb). I just upgraded my i3 to a Xeon e3-1240v2 and a AMD W5000 video card which have really sped things up. So now my only bottleneck is my ram. HP of course sell ram at a sligthly higher price oh say about 2.5x what everyone else wants. So I have been trying to find compatable ram that will not break the bank. For example Kingston makes : KTH-PL316EK4/16G for the Z220 which sells for about $70 verses $150+ for the HP stick. Axiom apears to be a OEM supplier and they sell for $78 while the rebranded sticks are $160.

So I have been trying to find any other alternatives but am running into the problem of knowing what specs have to be followed and what others you can cheat on. The HP specs are PC3-12800E 1600MHz DDR3 Unbuffered ECC 1.5v. I found the CL to be CL-11 or 11-11-11-28. This last item is what I am unsure about. I found for example a Corsair stick that had a CL of 11-11-11-30 and of course others. So my question is do I need to match the CL to what I have ? How close do I have to get? I do have the option of using eec or non-ecc as well which allows for more choices in the search but I think I'd be better off with ECC.

Hope someone can help me with this.

TNX!
 
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2x4b

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Oct 28, 2013
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You have to use RAM that is compatible with the motherboard. Read its manual and it will tell you what is "guaranteed" to work.
It is possible to get non-QVL RAM to work, but it is a gamble and is likely to be wasted money.

Don't bother with ECC unless you are running applications that would cost you real dollars should an error crop up (like a usual business server) or an app that is safety sensitive (like keeping trains from colliding..)
 
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KingDWS

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Jan 21, 2014
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The exact spec as given by HP is a PC3-12800E or a PC3-12800U which is a ddr3-1600 ecc or non-ecc unbuffered registered ram. The stock sticks show a CL11 rating which really is my question. I can find other ram from Samsung/Hynix etc etc that are close such as a 11-11-11-30 as well as 10-10-10-27 and so on. What I really need to know is how much difference the CAS/CL rating makes. Can I go ahead with say a 9-9-9-15 (making up number) knowing that that is a faster rating and won't matter.

How Critical is matching the CAS/CL number?
 
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Pinhedd

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Aug 7, 2007
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If you're planning on replacing the existing memory modules entirely (which is highly advised) then there's no need to match the existing memory module's timing profiles exactly. Your existing kit is DDR3-1600K but most DDR3-1600 modules are DDR3-1600H or better. You can easily get a DDR3-1600H UDIMM set from Kingston which will work wonderfully. Alternatively, you can get a DDR3-1600 RDIMM set with ECC for a few dollars more. The kit that you linked will of course work just fine.

The interface for DRAM is the same across the board and when standard values are used compatibility issues are almost non-existent. Matching for compatibility with particular models is only strictly necessary when running servers with huge amounts of memory.
 
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KingDWS

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Jan 21, 2014
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In the case of the Z220 you definitely cannot just match specs. I believe I went through 5 orders of ram including my go to Kingston before I finally found the last set of system specific ram for this made by Kingston. It was non-ecc and has been working flawlessly for a few weeks now. The previous Kingston ram which was supposed to be spec compatible was causing BSOD's every few hours. The Axion stuff was a few bsods an hour.

Other than loosing about $40 to shipping I think overall I still saved about $300 over what I would have had to pay for HP ram.
 
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