Motherboard & DDR3 compatibility & overclocking questions

[Guest]

Hello!

New guy here

I have three questions to ask about my purchase:

1)
As I am considering buying the Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z, 1155 socket with the Z68 chipset and I noticed the DDR3 memory speed was a maximum of 1600Mhz while on their website they say that 1866Mhz and 2133Mhz are overclocking speeds.

Should I buy 1600Mhz DDR3 memory modules and seek to overclock them or can I buy 1866Mhz or 2133Mhz if I seek to overclock the motherboard? Please help me understand this.


2)
Which property should I value more when buying memory modules or in what order?
Mhz, CL or GB ?
ex 1600Mhz with CL9 at SPD 9-9-9-27 and 32GB


3)
The final question is out of curiosity:
Why is this Corsair Vengeance model priced higher than the Dominator equivalent in what appears to be pretty identical products?
I was under the impression that Dominator was of higher quality or is there another reason?
The links below are actually reverse in pricing, but in Sweden the Vengeance model is on average priced about 35$ higher than the Dominator.

Which one should be used under which circumstances?
Can one rely on the stock heat spreader or are there airflow fans for them each?


Thank you!

 

[itzdanielp]

Welcome!

All 3 questions are good!

1. the MB in question can natively support up to 1600MHz RAM, but if you are overclocking the system it will also support the higher speeds. But that is advanced setup. If you just plug in the RAM the highest you can get (even if you bought faster RAM) is 1600MHz.

That really depends on what you want to do. If you know for sure that you want to overclock it generally is not too much more expensive to get the higher speed RAM, but there is no real benefit to overclocking RAM. 1600MHz is the sweetspot for Sandy Bridge processors, and going above that does not give a performance boost.

2. All 3 factors will make a difference, but for most people it really doesn't matter as it will not be noticeable. MHz is the frequency or speed that the memory works at. I would look for 1600MHz as it is stable and has great performance.

the CL number is the "timings" or how much time it takes to actually write to the memory sector. The lower the number the better, but almost all 1600MHz is 9 9 9 24 which is great.

GB is going to be the only one that really varies, which is the size of the available memory. Generally most users will never use more than 4GB of memory, but I find 8Gb to be a good goal to shoot for. Above that is pointless unless you are running a server or VM environment.

3. The Corsair Vengeance is corsair's top of the line model. They are higher "binned" (tested before assembly) chips that are guaranteed to be higher performance. Again the performance difference is not noticeable, and unless you are trying to do some extreme overclocking it is hard to justify the price difference.

all that said I would suggest one of these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104292

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233180

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428

 

[kajabla]

That motherboard's absurdly expensive. Why do you want it?
You shouldn't get more than 16gb of RAM, and you don't need anything faster than 1600mhz. It won't make a difference; the extra sticks will just sit idle.

 

[Guest]

Thank you both for your quick replies!

That really depends on what you want to do.

I would like to build a gaming computer.

1600MHz is the sweetspot for Sandy Bridge

1600MHz as it is stable and has great performance

but almost all 1600MHz is 9 9 9 24 which is great.

Generally most users will never use more than 4GB of memory, but I find 8Gb to be a good goal to shoot for. Above that is pointless unless you are running a server or VM environment

In that case I won't be needing anywhere near those RAM:s I posted before.

and unless you are trying to do some extreme overclocking it is hard to justify the price difference

Agreed, I don't think I will be needing that much.

all that said I would suggest one of these
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820104292
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820233180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231428

They all seem like very good alternatives!

That motherboard's absurdly expensive. Why do you want it?
You shouldn't get more than 16gb of RAM, and you don't need anything faster than 1600mhz. It won't make a difference; the extra sticks will just sit idle.

I don't think I will be going with the Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z motherboard mostly because of the price and 8GB RAM:s seems more than enough for me and what I want to do.



I think I understand things better now.

Again, thank you both for your quick replies!

 

[itzdanielp]

All motherboards will support at least 32GB of RAM, so don't discount the Maximus IV just because it can support a lot. It is an extremely well made board with a lot of tools built around overclocking. But it is an expensive board.

Another great board would be the Sabertooth P67, or any of the Asus / Gigabyte P67 / X68 boards.