DDR3 Tri-Channel Help

[showtimeridah]

I know its a lot of RAM but I need it for my Adobe CS4 Applications so if I be better off getting less ram please tell me. I will be getting the "i7-975 Extreme" with either these choices I picked out for memory help me choose!??

3GB DDR3 Tri-Channel SDRAM at 1066MHz - 3 DIMMs
6GB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs
12GB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs <--my personal choice lol

 

[LePhuronn]

Well, if you get the i7 920 and overclock it to match the i7 975 then you'll have plenty of cash left over to get the 12GB RAM. Seriously there is NO reason to get anything other than the i7 920 on X58 platform - it's easy to overclock the chip and will easily hit the same 3.33GHz as the i7 975. You might even be able to do it on the stock cooler too.

But get faster RAM - 1600MHz at CAS8 is the sweet spot for the i7.

 

[mindless728]

with the money saved going from i7-975 to i7-920 you could almost afford a 12GB (3x4GB) set of memory

there is an $800 set on newegg

 

[showtimeridah]

I can afford one of those over priced Alienware PC's lol money is not a issue is more of I want what is best and I'm not into the overclocking lol really I don't see any benifit from it.

 

[mindless728]

I can afford one of those over priced Alienware PC's lol money is not a issue is more of I want what is best and I'm not into the overclocking lol really I don't see any benifit from it.

even if money isn't a problem, overclocking has the benefit of getting same (or more) performance from a cheaper product
especially if money isn't a problem go for 3x4GB, it leaves 3 slots open if you ever need more

in the case of the 920 vs 975, hitting 3.33 is not a problem for the 920

though i can see where you are coming from, so you don't have to OC and put up with any problems it might encounter

 

[LePhuronn]

You don't see any benefit from making your computer operate faster? Especially with Adobe CS4 work, the more power you can throw at it, the more you can do with it. So therefore if you have a CPU that's rated at 3.33GHz but it can easily run at 4GHz then right there that's the benefit you get from overclocking - 700MHz performance for free.

OK, so money's not an issue so stick with the i7 975 as overclocking is easier because of the unlocked multiplier (you'll need a decent cooler though - I can advice if the conversation goes that way). If you want the best RAM and money's not an issue then you might as well go Corsair Dominator GT or similar high-spec RAM that operates around 1866MHz-2000MHz at CAS8 or lower.

For CS4 work you simply must get an SSD, and for video 2 or 3 1TB+ hard drives in RAID0

 

[geofelt]

I know its a lot of RAM but I need it for my Adobe CS4 Applications so if I be better off getting less ram please tell me. I will be getting the "i7-975 Extreme" with either these choices I picked out for memory help me choose!??

3GB DDR3 Tri-Channel SDRAM at 1066MHz - 3 DIMMs
6GB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs
12GB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs <--my personal choice lol

My understanding is that CS4 responds well to lots of ram.
You can get a 12gb kit of 6 x 2gb for about $300.

A 24gb kit of 6 x 4gb woulde cost you about $1600. Only certain X58 motherboards will support 24gb, and you will also need windows-7-64 bit professional or better to support more than 16gb.

I think the 12gb kit would be appropriate, given some consideration to value.

For any ram you are considering, Go to the ram vendor's web site, and access their configurator.
Corsair, Kingston, Patriot, OCZ and others have them.
Their compatibility list is more current than the motherboard vendor's QVL lists which rarely get updated.
Enter your mobo, and get a list of compatible ram sticks.

Here are a few links:

http://www.crucial.com/index.aspx

http://www.corsair.com/configurator/default.aspx

http://kingston.com/

http://conf.ocztechnology.com/index.php?c=1

http://www.patriotmemory.com/configurator/index.jsp

Cpu performance is not very sensitive to ram speeds.
If you look at real application and game benchmarks(vs. synthetic tests),
you will see negligible difference in performance between the slowest DDR2 and the fastest DDR3 ram.
Perhaps 1-2%. Not worth it to me.
Don't pay extra for faster ram or better timings unless you are a maximum overclocker.


Application speed does not increase with faster ram or better timings. Don't pay extra for that.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-scaling-i7,2325-11.html

 

[LePhuronn]

Application speed does not increase with faster ram or better timings. Don't pay extra for that.

I have seen a marginal increase in performance with CS4 media encoding with tighter RAM timings.

The 3 primary edit suites are all i7 920s OC to 3.6GHz with 12GB 1600GHz RAM, P6T motherboards with the same BIOS revision, 150GB Velociraptor system HDD, 2x 1TB Samsung SpinPoint F1 in RAID 0, Vista Ultimate 64-bit fully up-to-date i.e. as identical a build as you can possibly get.

2 of them use OCZ RAM at CAS9, one of them uses Corsair XMS3 at CAS7. The Corsair-equipped machine renders exactly the same projects a fraction faster - last one was a 5 minute After Effects piece that took 85 minutes on a OCZ machine, 82 minutes on the Corsair.

Not a great saving, but a saving nonetheless - make of that what you will.

As I said in my post earlier, 1600MHz CAS8 seems to be the sweet spot in real-world performance.

 

[geofelt]

I have seen a marginal increase in performance with CS4 media encoding with tighter RAM timings.

The 3 primary edit suites are all i7 920s OC to 3.6GHz with 12GB 1600GHz RAM, P6T motherboards with the same BIOS revision, 150GB Velociraptor system HDD, 2x 1TB Samsung SpinPoint F1 in RAID 0, Vista Ultimate 64-bit fully up-to-date i.e. as identical a build as you can possibly get.

2 of them use OCZ RAM at CAS9, one of them uses Corsair XMS3 at CAS7. The Corsair-equipped machine renders exactly the same projects a fraction faster - last one was a 5 minute After Effects piece that took 85 minutes on a OCZ machine, 82 minutes on the Corsair.

Not a great saving, but a saving nonetheless - make of that what you will.

As I said in my post earlier, 1600MHz CAS8 seems to be the sweet spot in real-world performance.

An informative post with real world experience---good job---

I am not experienced with CS4 and I have a couple of questions:

How cpu bound are the jobs that you run? How much difference did the OC make?

Are all threads being used?
I assume that there is an input file and an output file for the process.
Are both files on the same raid-0 array?
Have you experimented with separating the files on two different drives, and what were the results.

 

[showtimeridah]

Hey guys thanks for all this info, I always get the Corsair Memory its awesome so basically your telling me to just go for 3GB to save money and get then just my Corsair memory after I get the computer to install. If I'm incorrect please tell me! I don't know much about computers. Right now I have a E8200 2.66GHz OC @ 3.02GHz with Corsair 8.00 GB on my current setup this computer is getting old its chugging along but I am going to keep up with the new tech and get all new best everything I saved up for 2 years got around $4,900!!

 

[LePhuronn]

no, we're saying get 12GB because Adobe CS4 will eat up as much as you can throw at it.

Seriously even with a budget of almost 5 grand there's better ways to spend your money than just getting top-end components because you can.

Core i7 920 D0
12GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz CAS7

costs the same as just the i7 975. Strap on a Cogage True Spirit cooler and you can overclock the chip to at least 3.8GHz easily and it's not difficult to do.

You can then spend the money on other components like a pair of Intel 80GB SSDs in RAID0 for your boot drive and Adobe scratch disk, 3x 1TB Samsung SpintPoint F3 in RAID0 for HD video footage and a 4th one for projects and on-intensive footage - serious system performance then!

Get a pair of Radeon 5870 or 5970 graphic cards for some crazy gaming too, or invest in a Quadro CX - THE workstation card for Adobe CS4.

Basically I'm saying you can spend your money however you want - it's your system and you've saved hard to be able to build your dream machine - but as an Adobe CS4 bod myself your budget is dreamy for a serious media machine, and there's just better ways of spending you cash than on a $700 processor.

 

[blackhawk1928]

If money isn't an issue then I highly recommend getting the 975. First off the 975 has much higher stock cushion which will allow to overclock much higher then the 920. Secondly the 975 has almost a 700mhz overhead from the 920 and that 700mhz increase goes for all 4 cores and all 8 threads, which can give you a very big performance increase if the right applications utilize it. If you buy a 975 now, it will be worth considerable money later down the road for selling while the 920 will be worth dirt. And for photoshop get 12GB of Tripple Channeled ram, get the ram with the highest possible frequency and lowest possible Cas Latency that you can find, its for the best performance. That way you system will be really powerful, will have massive overclocking potential
As i always say if you have the money to spend, go for the 975.