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BUILDING MY FIRST COMPUTER AND I HAVE A MEMORY QUESTION

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April 10, 2012 9:01:48 PM

is it better to have one 8 gb sticks or an 8 gb kit with 2 4gb sticks. this is what i am looking at:

CORSAIR XMS3 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory

DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Timing 11-11-11-30
Cas Latency 11

$90.99

or

two of
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory

DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Timing 9-9-9-24
Cas Latency 9
54.99 x2 = 109.98

i understand the vengeance is faster memory but is it worth losing the ability to expand at a later time?

rest of build

110.00 AsRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 Motherboard, Socket 1155, PCI-Express 3.0, DDR3, USB 3.0, HDMI, 7.1 HD Audio, ASRock Instant Boot

i3 2200 $120

$180 ASUS ENGTX560 DCII OC/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

$50 Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, comes with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Top 140mm Fan, 1x Rear 120mm Fan, option Fans-2x Side 120mm Fan

$130 CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V v2.2 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

plan on being able to upgrade to i7 when the price drops and adding a second video card later and more memory

Thank every one for there help.
Paul

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a b } Memory
April 10, 2012 11:53:11 PM

If your motherboard will support it, it is better to use one 8 GB module rather than two 4 GB modules.

I had asked this question here in the past and this was the consensus.
April 11, 2012 12:49:40 AM

What will you be using the system for?

The question is that do you really needs all 16Gb of RAM now or is it better to only buy 8Gb first and invest the rest of the money on improving GPU, CPU or getting an SSD. Unless you are running some memory heavy program then upgrading to an 560Ti would bring more performance to your system then additional 8Gb of ram. Even with resource intensive program, its going to be bottle necked by the i3 and weaker GPU.

As the z77 board will be available in stores very soon, it would be wise to get on of those instead of a z68.

Sandybrige and Ivybridge uses dual channel memory controller, it would be best to have memory sticks in multiple of 2. Since your originally was going to get 2 of the 8Gb then it doesn't really matter, might be a problem if you only get one.
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