Timing or Speed?

[HaGGardSmurf]

Hey guy's

I just bought a AMD Phenom II x4 955 and will be buying an Asus M4A88TD-V EVO board in the next couple days.

Now the board says it supports: 2000(O.C.)/1333/1066 ECC,Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory

Now what should I be looking for as far as ram goes, low timing's, high capacity? I'd like to get some fast ram, but for about $100.

Also I'll very likely be overclocking my phenom to ~4 ghz I dont know if this will impact what ram to buy?

Should I be looking for lower timing's or higher speed's? I've seen some 7-7-7-7 1333 ram, but then I see lots of 9+ timing's on 2000 ram... What's better?

Edit: My board supports up to 16gb of ram, realistically will I ever need that much? I'm wondering if I should get a dual channel 4gb kit, and possibly buy another 4gb later. Would it be better to buy 8 gb now, and 8 later, or is 16 gb overkill? I do alot of multitasking, but definitely not 16gb worth...

 

[HaGGardSmurf]

When my board says it supports DDR3 2000 mhz (O.C) does this mean I need to buy 1333 ram, and overclock it to 2000 mhz or is the 2000 mhz speed itself considered an overclock?

 

[HaGGardSmurf]

According to this link, as long as the ram is CAS 8 I should be fine?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr3-1333-speed-latency-shootout,1754-3.html

Almost all of the 2000 ram I can find is all cas 9 or 10?

 

[HaGGardSmurf]

The board only lists 2000/1333/1066 so I assume I can only use one of those 3 speed's?

I was looking at this: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231371

It is cas 9,
9-9-9-24 timing
4 gb, comes with fan
also in the detail's it says it's made for the board's I'm looking at getting.

Thing that's confusing me is the 2000 mhz speed is listed as O.C
Does that mean I need to overclock it myself, or can I just buy 2000 mhz ram from newegg? (IE: is 2000 mhz ram generally classified as 'overclocked' and you can buy it like that, kind of like graphics cards? You can buy some that are o.c'd?)

 

[HaGGardSmurf]

Ahh, ok cool, I was wondering why it would support 2000 but not any speeds in between, didnt make much sense to me :S

Is there any benefit to 1600 mhz? Wouldnt 2000 be better as it's faster ram?

From what I've read it sounds like ram isn't a huge deal. As in overclocking etc wont give very much of a performance boost at all. Is this true?

 

[HaGGardSmurf]

Alright, after reading that I'll be going 1600 mhz. Stability is my main thing.

What do you think of this? http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277
(60 bucks for 4 gb is damn cheap IMO, the stuff I was looking at before was like 120 for 4gb)

G.Skill seems to have lots of high quality ram for low prices, I've only used kingston ram, so I dont know much about g.skill.

If I were to get the 4gb I'd get 8gb but I scrolled down a bit and found this: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314

A bit cheaper, and leaves me 2 slot's for future ram upgrades.

 

[HaGGardSmurf]

Looking at the supported memory list, the 2x 4GB is not listed, but the 2x 2gb is..

Would the 8 gb work also, and they just have not updated the .pdf?
(The 8gb's part num is: F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL, also the board I'm likely going to get is the M4A89GTD PRO, mainly because of the dual 8x pci-e slots)

So would you recommend I go 4 or 8?

The 4 gb would leave me with some spare cash for a cpu cooler and psu. But it would limit me to 8gb. Which isn't a big deal I think?

I appreciate your help alot man!

 

[HaGGardSmurf]

Well on the memory list there are some 8 gb kits or single 4gb sticks. So it seems like the board can handle 4gb sticks just the RAM in particular is not listed.

Not a huge deal since I think ill go 2x 2gb now and possibly add another 4gb later. Seems like 8 now, and 8 later is overkill.

 

[HaGGardSmurf]

Best answer selected by HaGGardsmurf.