What RAM brand to choose (1600MHz, 1.5V)

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Gustas

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Hello,

I'm building my first High-End PC and I have to decide what RAM memory brand to choose:
Kingston Hyper-X Fury black (1600MHz, 1.5V, non-ECC, unbuffered)
or
Corsair Vengeance low profile (1600MHz, 1.5V, non-ECC, unbuffered)

Can you help me to choose what is better?
 
Solution
D
I would use any brand but Kingston. They are literally the only company left selling DDR3 1600 cas 9 that needs 1.65 volts. This is aimed at AMD users but every other company has moved to the same RAM at 1.5v. So they are moving some very low quality ICs.

I have had great luck with GSkill the last few years and they have become my 'go to' brand. My next choices would be Crucial as they are the retail division of Micron and Samsung as they, like Micron are an actual manufacturer.

Corsair RAM much like their power supplies have gone down in quality in recent years. See the fail rates here:

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/108284-huge-list-of-failure-rates-on-pc-components-french-but-i-translated-nearly-everything/
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I would use any brand but Kingston. They are literally the only company left selling DDR3 1600 cas 9 that needs 1.65 volts. This is aimed at AMD users but every other company has moved to the same RAM at 1.5v. So they are moving some very low quality ICs.

I have had great luck with GSkill the last few years and they have become my 'go to' brand. My next choices would be Crucial as they are the retail division of Micron and Samsung as they, like Micron are an actual manufacturer.

Corsair RAM much like their power supplies have gone down in quality in recent years. See the fail rates here:

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/108284-huge-list-of-failure-rates-on-pc-components-french-but-i-translated-nearly-everything/
 
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Solution
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Deleted member 217926

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Also if your high end PC is an Intel Haswell build you should start with DDR3 2133 cas 9 or 10 as Haswell scales quite well with higher speed memory. AMD APUs also need the fastest memory you can afford if you are using their graphics cores.
 
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G

Gustas

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My processor is haswell type but it only supports 1333 and 1600MHz RAM, also motherboard only supports these ram speeds. So I can't use use faster memory than 1600MHz.
 
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What are your exact specs? An i5 or an i7 will certainly work with faster RAM then is 'officially' supported. An i3 might not. The memory controller is on the CPU and the motherboard makes very little difference as to what's supported.

Sandy Bridge 2xxx CPUs officially supported DDR3 1333 and did best with DDR3 1600.
Ivy Bridge 3xxx CPUs officially supported DDR3 1600 and did best with DDR3 1866
Haswell 4xxx CPUs officially support DDR3 1600 but have an updated memory controller and do just fine with anything up to DDR3 2400.

DDR3 2133 cas 9 or 10 is usually available for close to the same price as DDR3 1600 and gives a small but measurable performance boost. The higher speed and low latency make it an excellent choice for Haswell builds.
 
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Gustas

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My processor is i5-4690 and my motherboard is ASUS H97-PRO so i thought that I don't want to overclock anything and just sit with 1600MHz RAM.
 
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No overclocking involved. Just enable XMP ( Extreme memory profile ) in BIOS and the RAM will run at it's listed speed and timings. The gains are not huge and would mostly be seen in things other than gaming but if you are working with photo or video editing or rendering software using higher speed memory can help. And with higher speed stuff so cheap ( at least here in the US ) it just makes sense to get the most out of a new build.
 
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Here are some great articles from 2 of the other great tech review sites if you want to look at some actual data.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell/10

" Haswell Recommendations

For discrete GPU users, recommending any kit over another is a tough call. In light of daily workloads, a good DDR3-1866 C9 MHz kit will hit the curve on the right spot to remain cost effective. Users with a few extra dollars in their back pocket might look towards 2133 C9/2400 C10, which moves a little up the curve and has the potential should a game come out that is heavily memory dependent. Ultimately the same advice also applies to multi-GPU users as well as IGP: avoid 1600 MHz and below."


http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/haswell-ddr3_8.html#sect0

" According to our tests, today’s Haswell-based platforms perform quite differently with different memory modules. We can’t say anymore that memory subsystem parameters don’t matter. By changing your DDR3 SDRAM parameters, you can actually ensure a performance boost of 20-30%! "
 
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Tradesman1

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+1
 
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G

Gustas

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Ok. You really helped me. But I have one more question. So I need to buy a better motherboard to support better RAM speeds? Because in this mobo my RAM will run only at 1600MHz fastest.
 
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