Confused about DDR4 or DDR3 or DDR3L

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Sujit Joshi

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Mar 3, 2014
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Hi
I am fairly new to PC building, and am two systems old. I am designing a new build which will be used for some heavy duty work on Adobe CS6 and CorelDraw X7. This PC is a much needed upgrade over a machine with Core 2 Duo (2.4 GHz) and 4 GB (DDR2, I think).
I am considering using the following specs:

Processor- i3-6100 OR i5 6400

Ram- Corsair Value select 2133 MHz 8 GB (2x4GB) [other DDR4 modules are not that easily available in India, and I'm not sure or RipJaws RAM]

Mobo: Asus H170M-PLUS or Asus H170M-PLUS D3 or Asus H170-PRO

No GPU is being considered; as this is a budget build, I will try using Intel's inbuilt graphics and buy a GPU if I feel the need

What I am not sure about are the motherboards and their compatible RAMs. Intel says on their ark page for the processors that they support DDR4 as well as DDR3L, but the H170M Plus D3 says that DDR3 as well as DDR3L is supported. Would my processors work with DDR3 on the D3 mobo? Also, is DDR4 worth the upgrade? I searched a bit and found that there isn't much of a performance gain in comparison to using DDR3. But on the other hand, having newer types of RAM may have some advantage in the future, 4 or 5 years down the road when I may need to upgrade this build.
Thanks in advance
 
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DDR4 is more future proof, at the end of the day it depends on your budget. For your processor I'd highly recommend the i5 over the i3 as the difference is noticeable, where as the difference is rather minimal between an i5 and i7.

Now regarding the ram itself.. This is a bit of a weird one, Intel themself have stated Skylake only supports DDR3L and DDR4. The reasoning for this is because of the voltages. DDR4 has a default voltage of 1.2v, where as DDR3 is 1.5v. I'm guessing DDR3L is approved as it's 1.35v. In saying all this, motherboard's built for Skylake often state DDR3 is approved, however the risk is yours as Intel have stated it could damage the chip. I'd go for a motherboard that supports DDR4 and make the move.
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maxalge

maxalge

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it is not recommended to use ddr3 with the newer skylake cpu's, as the voltages could wear out the memory controller in the cpu prematurely



http://www.tomshardware.com/news/skylake-memory-support,30185.html#xtor=RSS-181



stick to ddr4 if you want to go the skylake route, i would not risk ddr3l either ( i really suggest you go i5 in your new build )
 
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thehutti

thehutti

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The processors only work with DDR3L or DDR4, you cant use the normal Non-L DDR3 (the higher voltage can damage your CPU over time).
If you have to buy new RAM anyways then you should go for DDR4, because it costs almost the same, if you have DDR3L you can reuse them and save some money because the performance increase is almost none.
 
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Joshua_32

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DDR4 is more future proof, at the end of the day it depends on your budget. For your processor I'd highly recommend the i5 over the i3 as the difference is noticeable, where as the difference is rather minimal between an i5 and i7.

Now regarding the ram itself.. This is a bit of a weird one, Intel themself have stated Skylake only supports DDR3L and DDR4. The reasoning for this is because of the voltages. DDR4 has a default voltage of 1.2v, where as DDR3 is 1.5v. I'm guessing DDR3L is approved as it's 1.35v. In saying all this, motherboard's built for Skylake often state DDR3 is approved, however the risk is yours as Intel have stated it could damage the chip. I'd go for a motherboard that supports DDR4 and make the move.
 
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Sujit Joshi

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Mar 3, 2014
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Thank you for the information. I will probably end up buying the i5. Any comments on ripjaws ddr4 ram sticks?


 
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Sujit Joshi

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Thank you for your help. Also, are there any dangers of using 2400MHz RAM in the 2133MHz ram slot in the asus H170M-PLUS? their website says that the ram will work at 2133 MHz instead of 2400, but are there any chances of the cpu getting damaged?

 
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