Whats the difference in Memory of equal spec?

[BoydPro]

I went all out, and purchased the Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB kit for my Dream Machine, in the hopes of a flawless build, only to find that it has some compatibility issue with my ASRock Fatality Champion MB. Forced to seek out a replacement, I started to wonder... All spec being equal, does it really matter how much I spend?
For instance:
The Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB Kit (CMD32GX3M4A1600C9) is DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24 for $275
The Team Vulcan 32GB Kit (TXD332G1600HC9QC-V) is also DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24 for only $175
Then there's the G.Skill Trident X 32GB Kit (F3-1600C7Q-32GTX) which is still DDR3-1600 but with an even faster timing of 7-8-8-24 for $230

I realize this may be a pretty loaded question, but I gotta know. Is there any benefit in spending the extra money, or is it just for the name and a fancy heat spreader?

Thanks in advance,
Boyd

 

[alvine]

what are your system specs? what are you using the comptuer for? if only gaming you will not see performance improvements with going over 8 gigs of ram and yes with more ram you will be faced with compability issues so I would recommend sticking with 4gb x2 for 8gb config for lga 1155 and 4x2gb for lga 2011 to take the advantage of dual channel memory controllers and quad channel memory controllers on the high end lga 2011 socket

 

[RetiredChief]

First, what did you do to verify memory compatability. ie do two sticks work (16 gigs)?
Have you tried bumping the ram voltage up slightly. Some motherboards have a problem with 32 gigs of ram in that it loads the supply voltage or signal level (bclock voltage). If it's a loading problem it is going to be a hit/miss and not a issue of Ram cost. NOT all MB are created equal in this respect.
NOTE: Max DIMM voltage for IB/SB is 1.575 Volts, so try a Ram Voltage of 1.550V - if works back off to 1.525 and re-check for stability (I use Prime 95 to check CPU/RAM stability)

Very little diff in performance between say CL 9,9 and CL 7,8. Normally you will only see a diff in Benchmark, not real life performance.

Use to Love corsair, but switched to G-skill ripjaws for my systems. But then I'm only running 4 x 4 modules (Max for Win 7 premum is 16 gigs).

When loking for Ram, I try to look thru the comments at newegg to see if someone tried MB/Ram combination.

I've found that Price does not allways equate to Best Choice. (excluding the value ram). Corsair normally uses Micron chips which may be higher cost, but not nessicarily better USE to be the Best chips). NOTE: corsair was spun off of Micron.

Added: what alvine stated on amount of memory is correct for games, There are a few programs that can take advange of as much memory as you can trow at it. Normally high end video/photo editing programs and CAD/Cam programs.

 

[BoydPro]

Alvine:
ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Champion
Intel i7-3930k LGA 2011
Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB DDR-1600(?)
OCZ Vector 256GB SSD Boot Drive
Samsung 830 128GB SSD and 1TB HDD w/SSD Caching
Galaxy GeForce GTX 660 (May attempt to flash to Quadro)
Topower 1000w Gold Cert. PSU
High Point Rocket RAID contoller w/4 2TB drives in RAID 5

I'm using this rig primarily for Audio Production and some video editing. Steinberg Nuendo/Sony Vegas Pro, etc. I will be doing zero gaming on this gaming board. lol
It just had the specs I wanted. ie Tons of USB 3.0. I'll have dozens of plug-ins running at any given time, sound buffering, etc where the extra memory will come in very handy.

Chief:
I used Memtest86+ and received hundreds of errors in tests 5 & 6 whether all four modules were in, or just one. I also tested each one individually. I'm also aware of, and followed, the specific slot placement required by ASRock/X79
I'm at work now, but will try your voltage theory when I get home, and try prime95. I'm a total noob when it comes to that stuff. There's a whole list of memory parameters you can change in this BIOS, most of which are a total mystery to me aside from the speed (1600) and basic timings (9-9-9-24).
Had access to an 8GB stick of G.Skill value ram, and a 4GB stick of G.Skill ripjaws x, both of which installed and Memtested perfectly without even looking at the BIOS settings. I'd really like the Corsair to work, 1 - because I already have it, and 2 - It looks really cool. lol. But maybe this tells me that I should just get some G.Skill and be done with it? ASRocks QVL is kinda worthless and outdated.
I also spent a fair amount of time looking through reviews for this very reason, but there didn't seem to be much to go on with my MB.
It's been a while since I've built a rig like this. I figured memory compatibility issues had been lessened over the years. -Guess not.
I'd love to hear any other thoughts you may have on this now that you have more info.
Thank you very much for your input. I'm excited to see if the voltage does the trick.
-Boyd

 

[RetiredChief]

1) Try this. With a stick that will allow you to go into bios, Then set bios to use XMP, profile one. Save and reboot. Replace that stick with one of your Corsair sticks. see if it will Boot, if so then run memtest86+ to see if it now passes. If not then try upping the Ram voltage. try say 1.575 if that works then start backing off to find the lowest voltage that will work and is error free. Prime95 is only after it passes Memtest86.

2) On adjusting timings, only mess with the first 5 settings leave all others set to auto. However if They do Not work at advertized specs, I'd go for either RMA as defective, or return for a different brand.

 

[BoydPro]

Right. Sorry. Forgot to mention that I haven't been able to install windows yet. It was errors during install that started this whole thing. The Corsair always shows and allows BIOS. Everything looks normal aside from it defaulting to DDR3-1333 setting. Timings and everything show up correctly in BIOS.
I will try the BIOS, and voltage tests when I get home. Thanks again.

UPDATE: I tried the Corsair on a Biostar TA990FXE here at work. It showed up in BIOS and everything correctly again, but would not let windows boot. Then I ran Memtest86+ again and not one stick made it past test 1, which has me thinking this memory is garbage.

 

[RetiredChief]

Just a comment as this is the 2nd post regarding "NEW quality ram" today.

What is your relative humidity (RH) and How have you been handling your ram.
Winter time = low humidity = Increased chance of generating a high electrostic charge. You do not even know when you have a charge of <1KV (ram is what 1.5 V). RH in the 30's is bad enough, but in the 20's is 20x worse.

90% of SD damage results in degrade performance and reduce life. Only 10% results in immediate and complete Failure (ie DOA). Common misconception "you have to touch exsposed pin - wrong, just bringing your pinky very close can cause damage, picking it up not touching pins falls into this catagory.

If this is the case:
.. The bad, will have to RMA it
.. The good, New sticks will probably work right out of the box - Just make sure you are not CHARGED.

Note: DDR3-1600 will default to DDR3-1333 for Sandybridge, but for IB should default to 1600

 

[BoydPro]

I have acoustic instruments in my space, so the room is maintained to around 35 to 40% humidity. I'm pretty anal about these things. Built my rig with the static bracelet and everything. I carried my fancy Corsair memory around like it was my child. The G.Skill stuff, on the other hand, wasn't even in a package, even carried it around in my pants pocket for a while, and it still worked just fine. If the Corsair is that sensitive, I don't want it. Plus, the possibility that I zapped all 4 sticks seems pretty slim to me, but having an entire kit of bad ram at all seems pretty slim too.

Got Corsair on the phone after work, and received an email back from ASRock. Both were also adamant about setting the XMP profile to profile 1 and not auto, Corsair also recommended raising the voltage to 1.55 which didn't work. I then tried 1.575 which also didn't work. Corsair went on to mention that, since the memory controller is in the CPU, a hot CPU could also cause problems, but not the case since mine runs around 40c with liquid.

Still can't get over the fact that the G.Skill stuff just worked, and after all this tinkering around, this fancy and expensive Corsair stuff just doesn't. I'm not giving up though. I believe in second chances, so I'm going to exchange it and hope for the best. But if it doesn't work again, I'm going straight for the G.Skill.

Thanks so much for your help and input. I'll try to update this thread when I get the replacement ram.

Wish me luck,
Boyd

 

[getochkn]

Sometimes things don't work. you've seemed to narrow out all the options.

Good choice on Nuendo. I haven't done any audio in years, but when I did, it was Nuendo. It's an awesome DAW. I could mow through it 5x faster than I could in slow tools. Wish it was used more.

 

[BoydPro]

Hello all. Sorry it's been a minute or so.

Just to update. The replacement corsair dominator ram also did not work so i swaped it for 8 pcs of G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9S-4GBXL and it's worked fine ever since. Unfortuneately, it seems like I've been having nothing but issues with this rig since I built it. I've been having issues with it crashing when I put it to sleep, and other things which I've attributed to the motherboard or GTX 660, both of which I've exchanged under warranty, but I just worked around them and tried to ignore them until a few weeks ago when I was converting m4v files to mp4 and realized that my cheap notebook did it 40% faster than this monster machine! And now after looking through this tread again, I'm wondering if it could still be a tiny voltage issue causing these problems.

So, I'm back on the prowl to get the performance I paid for over a year ago. Here's the new thread:http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2336330/wrong-workstation-graphics-card-slower-notebook.html#xtor=EPR-8809

AMEN getochkn! Nuendo has always blown slow tools (love that) and everything else out of the water, but now that Avid has essentially stolen everything steinberg created, Pro Tools 11 is getting pretty close. Once Yamaha came around I was sure that Nuendo would take over (skywalker sound, etc uses it), but now steinberg has made some poor decisions in terms of customer support which is losing users if anything, but I digress.

Many thanks to RetiredChief for hangin in there with me, and thanks to everyone who posted.