Which memory to choose

[Shawnjd]

Hi everyone. I'm building a new system and am curious which RAM would be a better choice?

G.Skill DDR3 1066 7-7-7-18

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231308

or

G.Skill DDR3 1333 9-9-9-24

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231311

I'm using an ASUS M4a88t-m motherboard and an AMD Phenom ii 945. There's only a $10 difference in price, so I was just curious if there would be a noticable difference in performance before I order.

Thanks

 

[Maziar]

Hello and welcome to the forums
You won't notice a difference in games/apps,however if you want to OC,although the first one has lower timings,i would recommend going with DDR3 1333,because IMO its better for OC'ng Phenom II CPUs

 

[Shawnjd]

Thanks Maziar, I won't be doing any OC'ng. I'm just looking for reliability and ease of installation. I probably won't be doing much gaming either, however this system will be used to run various OS's (Server 2008, & various Linux distro's) as Virtual Machines and I would like those to perform as well as possible. Does your recommendation of faster speeds rather than lower timings still apply for this situation?

There is also this kit from OCZ, ddr3 1333 9-9-9-20, which has slightly lower timings:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227541

It's roughly the same price, but it says it's designed for Intel (not sure if that means anything).

Does anybody have any experience using this on an AMD platform? Of these two brands which do you prefer? Judging from the reviews on Newegg, G.Skill seems to have better customer support.

Thanks

 

[saint19]

Hi newcomer and welcome to the Tom's hardware forum.

1- Why do u need 8GB? Unless that u use many adobe applications at the same time 8GB are overkill for now.
2- You can get two kits of this G.Skill 1600 for $ 205 that are much better in times and speed.

 

[Shawnjd]

Hi saint19, my thinking behind the 8gb's was that when running multiple virtual machines at once it would be smoother. Currently when doing this on a 4gb system there seems to be a noticeable amount of latency.

As for the G.Skill 1600, I thought I had heard that either AMD or ASUS didn't support speed's over 1333 when running over 4gb? I could be wrong though.

 

[saint19]

Not true AMD support RAM 1333 or above without problems.

 

[Shawnjd]

OK, I'll keep that in mind. For what I'm doing, do you think I would really need 1600? I know it's only about $25 - $35 more, but $205 is more than I wanted to spend.

 

[saint19]

The "problem" with the RAM that u listed is that don't have good times and speed, the 1st one is 7-7-718 but 1066 that deliver the same performance that DD2 1066 and the 2nd one is 1333 but 9-9-9-24 but with same timings u can get a 2000MHz or above RAM.

The high price of both 1066 and 1333 is because are 8GB kit. I suggest to u the 1600 RAM because has very good times and the price isn't high.

 

[Maziar]

Thanks Maziar, I won't be doing any OC'ng. I'm just looking for reliability and ease of installation. I probably won't be doing much gaming either, however this system will be used to run various OS's (Server 2008, & various Linux distro's) as Virtual Machines and I would like those to perform as well as possible. Does your recommendation of faster speeds rather than lower timings still apply for this situation?

There is also this kit from OCZ, ddr3 1333 9-9-9-20, which has slightly lower timings:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227541

It's roughly the same price, but it says it's designed for Intel (not sure if that means anything).

Does anybody have any experience using this on an AMD platform? Of these two brands which do you prefer? Judging from the reviews on Newegg, G.Skill seems to have better customer support.

Thanks

Like i said you won't notice a difference between numerous speed and timings for general usage.
And that OCZ RAM should work fine without a problem.("Designed for Intel" is mostly advertising because it should work fine on both AMD Phenom II and Intel Core i series")