Which RAM would be best for this build?

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jason1297

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Nov 28, 2015
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I'm doing my first build with and i5 4690k and an MSI r9 380 4gb on an ASrock z97m pro4 build (I don't want to overlook yet, but may do in the future).
I've read that 8gb is the sweet spot at the moment, so I was thinking of 2x4gb in dual channel (I can always add 2 more when 16gb is the way to go, right?)

The issue is, I don't actually know which ram to get. I've asked friends before, and have been told "RAM is RAM" but I'm sure there's more to it than that. I know the board supports DDR3, but I don't know the best frequency (or the maximum the board/CPU would support).

Any help would be greatly appreciated :)
 
Solution
Tradesman1
Well actually no "RAM isn't RAM, there are a number of things that can play in, and 'just adding more RAM' offers no guarantees - these are actually the first two myths I look at in my article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-dram-myths,4155.html

I'd look to 2x4GB or preferably 2x8GB as I expect you'll want to keep this awhile, in 2133 or 2400, I'd look to the GSkill Ripjaws X, which are priced well and are strong sticks with OC headroom, a little pricier at times are the Trident X
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GhislainG

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Jul 16, 2008
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Your friends are not totally wrong. Any DDR3 1600 or 1866 MHz kit should work. If you plan on eventually upgrading to 16 GB, then buy a 2x8GB kit now; adding another 8GB kit later may lead to system instabilities (4 modules are harder to drive than 2) and you can't be sure they'll be the same even if they have the exact same part number.
 
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jason1297

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Is higher frequency necessarily better?
If so, 2x8gb 1866MHz from a reputable company should do the trick?
 
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GhislainG

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Jul 16, 2008
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Higher frequency is better if you run benchmarks. It doesn't make a significant difference unless you game at a very low resolution or you play Thief: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/haswell-ddr3.html As an example, there is a significant cost difference between G.SKILL Ares Series 16GB DDR3 1866 and G.SKILL TridentX 16GB DDR3 2666; the faster RAM is at least twice as expensive.In my mind it isn't worth it.
 
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Tradesman1

Tradesman1

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Jun 5, 2013
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Well actually no "RAM isn't RAM, there are a number of things that can play in, and 'just adding more RAM' offers no guarantees - these are actually the first two myths I look at in my article:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-dram-myths,4155.html

I'd look to 2x4GB or preferably 2x8GB as I expect you'll want to keep this awhile, in 2133 or 2400, I'd look to the GSkill Ripjaws X, which are priced well and are strong sticks with OC headroom, a little pricier at times are the Trident X
 
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jason1297

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Nov 28, 2015
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Will this motherboard support such high freq? I can't see any detailed specs on the site.
 
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