Which 32GB RAM kit should I get?

JonL

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May 14, 2014
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I am building a new computer (and it has been a while) and was looking at all the configurations that get me to 32GB of RAM. My intuition was to go for the G.Skill Trident 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3-2400 kit--this seems to be consistent with all of the posts I read about the clock speed mattering more than the CAS latency (that kit is 10-12-12-31).

However, what am I missing? I see most of what folks recommend on here is DDR3-1600 memory (assuming with CAS of 8 or less). Is there a better sweet spot for performance that I am naively missing by primarily filtering on clock speeds?

Thanks in advance for your help!
 
Solution
You can look on this review of how clock speed and CL timming scale and how it perform.

Also any special reason why you need 32GB memory? There are very few programs able to use it or get close to it. Some professional software maybe (probably even that wont use it all) or if you run with many virtual machines.

senkasaw

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The reason you see ddr3 1600 recommended the most is because that is the "sweet spot" for price/performance. You wont actually see much performance difference with higher clocked ram. There will be slight (very slight) performance increases with faster modules, but they will not be noticeable. You are better off putting that extra money into faster graphics and processing power.

On the same note...32GB of ram is a ton. Absolutely unneeded for gaming. If you do a lot of rendering or video/photo editing that is a different story though.
 

pm4

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Apr 28, 2014
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You can look on this review of how clock speed and CL timming scale and how it perform.

Also any special reason why you need 32GB memory? There are very few programs able to use it or get close to it. Some professional software maybe (probably even that wont use it all) or if you run with many virtual machines.
 
Solution

JonL

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I do a lot of number crunching and have to work with a lot of applications open all at once. Once the physical RAM is used up, I notice a severe degradation in my system's performance. I also want to try to configure some of my applications to run from a RAM disk, but that is more experimental.
 

pm4

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If you are able to use 16GB or so it's different ofc. Get 32 GB in that case.
What you experience in matter of slowing down with full ram is called swapping, when is ram full it takes part of data which are not used right at that moment and store them at HDD which are much slower. Next time you need that data it again free some in ram by storing it on HDD and load previously stored portion from HDD back to ram. This is why when you fill your ram it suddendly get's so much slower.
 

senkasaw

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Agreed. If you are using up 16GB then definitely go for 32GB. I would just try to find the most cost effective set.