Help me understand RAM types.

Hey

I'm buying the "Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4" motherboard and the reason i don't buy the more
expensive version of it is because of the pci and pci-ex 1 spots. The reason i don't buy
the cheaper version is because it only has 4 ram slots.

But, not going for the more expensive version "the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5", i cannot use
ddr3 12800 ram it says, so i have to do with 10666 or 16000.

now i wish someone could help me understand. I basically understand that 16000 ram
is faster than 10666 but there is also the understanding of. 7-7-7-20 and 8-8-8-24 and 9-9-9-24 etc.

You have ram that cost a fortune, OCZ Blade Series DDR3 2000MHz 7-8-7-20.
But also have much cheaper 16000 ram like OCZ Reaper HPC DDR3 2000MHz 9-9-9-30.

And offcourse you have OCZ Platinum XTC DDR3 1333MHz 7-7-7-20, which is very cheap.

Now i don't want to spend money on something i don't need. That is why i need to understand
or at least get the meaning of the different kinds of ram. I have had a problem finding proper
test sites for this or a very good detailed description.

I'm going to buy a Core i7-920 with Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4 and GTX-295 card.
i'm going to be playing a lot of games but more importantly i'm going to make machinima
and such which require using of FRAPS etc. in games that already uses a lot of resources.

What kind of ram am i looking for ?. And why ?
And remember, it says that the motherboard cannot take 12800 ram.

Thanks. but sorry, that link didn't help me much
And it does not mention ddr3.

I'm trying to get the very main basics. like.. can a 10666 7-7-7-20 be faster than 16000 9-9-9-30 ?

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/phen [...] 31596.html
this is the am3 test but i7 will giv the same result

Even if 2000 7-8-7 added almost 1% performance increase to real-world app, would you be willing to shell out $500 for it?
Those 2000Mhz 7-8-7 are what we use in the world of extreme benchmarking where there's no cost limitation. They are highly speed binned of latest Elpida DDR3 chips.

1600Mhz or 1333Mhz 7-7-7 is more than enough for typical overclocks.

I WOuld buy the 2000 cl9 once the reviews are good just to be able to tell my friends my ram runs at 2.0GHZ

2000Mhz 9-9-9 is an exact duplicate of 1600Mhz 7-8-7 kits so go for whichever one has the lower price.

CaptivA, 1333Mhz 7-7-7 is the best in value for what you're aiming for.

FYI, some of us benchers even find 2x2GB in dual-channel to be faster than under triple-channel for the same speed & timing, with certain benchmarks. The triple-channel on Core i7 just has way too much bandwidth for any desktop app. to make full use of.

I bet it would support 1600MHz just fine if you tried it.

You can always clock BCLK a bit higher like 166, drop multiplier to keep same overall CPU clock to allow you to use higher QPI and RAM speed.