DDR3 Ram Guide

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Sep 11, 2015
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Hello. I need little help. Im going to buy Maximus VII hero(because i love it). I wanna know which combination of ram is good. I'll get a 1600Mhz ram. For now maybe 8gb in future i'll upgrade to 16gb. So which combination is good(G skill ripjaws x).
4*2gb or 1*8gb(for 8gb)
4*4gb or 8*2gb(for 16gb)
That board can support up to 32gb of ram...THANKS...
 
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Vic 40
For latency's is lower better,but it depends on the speed as well.I would look at this,
speed=>cas latency
1600mhz=>7<->9
1866mhz=>8/9
2133mhz=>9/10
2400mhz=>10/11
as said lower cas latency being better.Compare prices as well.

Depends on the cpu as well.When a non "K"version look at speeds up to 2133mhz (might work,but not certain),but 1866mhz with a lower latency would be a good choice there,like 1866=>8 (but 9 would do fine too).
for a "K"version could you go higher,but it could be needed to overclock the cpu to reach that higher ram speed as well.

If you think you'll need 16gb's of ram,better go for it right now.Take 2x8gb in that case.It's economical the better choice,also mixing ram isn't always without troubles so adding ram...
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Shaun o

Shaun o

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Oct 7, 2007
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I will also pitch in here.
Say you decided to start of with 8 Gb of DDR 3 memory.
Always buy it in a kit of two sticks
Ie: 4gb x2.

Never opt for 8Gb of memory via one memory stick.
Because you will be running the memory in single channel memory mode on the motherboard.
Where as two 4Gb sticks of memory are better as it will set the motherboard to dual channel memory mode.

Always buy as a pair of matched sticks and never mix brands, and memory speeds.

Dual channel memory mode is better and faster because one memory stick in single channel memory mode gives you a Data bus of 64 bit of data wide per clock cycle of the read and write of the memory module.

Where as dual channel mode will give you a 128 bits of data per clock cycle of read and write memory operations.
effectively doing double the memory read and writes in a single pass.
Speeding data processing up from memory.
 
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capt_taco

capt_taco

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Aug 5, 2009
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Don't just look at the MHz; also look at the latency. The "true" speed of a stick of RAM, in simple terms, is the clock speed in MHz divided by the latency.

So a stick of 2133 RAM with 10 latency (pretty common) will give you a relative speed of 2133/10 or 213.3. A set of 1600 MHz RAM at 7 latency (for example this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231628) would give you 1600/7 or 228.6, which would actually be slightly better. DDR3-2800 sounds like a big step up, but at 12 latency it'd give you 233.3, which is not as much as you'd think.

The point is: While faster clock speed generally means faster overall, two sets of RAM with identical clock speeds can be quite difference. So don't just look at 1866 or 2133 RAM and grab any old one; pay attention.

As clock speeds go up, latency tends to go up also - and at the high clock speeds, voltages increase as well. So that set of DDR3-1600 at 7 latency can get by at 1.5V, which is the standard for DDR3, while most of the RAM with speeds in the high 2000s will use 1.65V. That's not the end of the world for a DDR3 machine, but you are more likely to run into compatibility issues such as the motherboard not knowing what to do with it on "auto" settings, etc. One more thing to be aware of.
 
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Vic 40

Vic 40

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Oct 22, 2013
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For latency's is lower better,but it depends on the speed as well.I would look at this,
speed=>cas latency
1600mhz=>7<->9
1866mhz=>8/9
2133mhz=>9/10
2400mhz=>10/11
as said lower cas latency being better.Compare prices as well.

Depends on the cpu as well.When a non "K"version look at speeds up to 2133mhz (might work,but not certain),but 1866mhz with a lower latency would be a good choice there,like 1866=>8 (but 9 would do fine too).
for a "K"version could you go higher,but it could be needed to overclock the cpu to reach that higher ram speed as well.

If you think you'll need 16gb's of ram,better go for it right now.Take 2x8gb in that case.It's economical the better choice,also mixing ram isn't always without troubles so adding ram might not work.Something to read about that (and other "stuff" about ram),
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-dram-myths,4155.html#p4

This higher speed ram will,in your case at least,only work because of the "Z" board,on a H97 or B85 would 1600mhz be the max speed,this for others who read this.
 
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