DDR3 On A Budget: Six 6 GB Memory Kits

By Thomas Soderstrom
published

Crucial And OCZ

Crucial DDR3-1333 CAS 9

Crucial packs its CT3KIT25664BA1339 DDR3-1333 triple-channel kit in three individual boxes, with a sleeve to keep them together. Each box contains a single CT25664BA1339 module, and future Core i5 users will be pleased to note a dual-channel package of the same modules is already available as part number CT2KIT25664BA1339.

Rated at DDR3-1333 CAS 9, Crucial’s most impressive specification is its industry-standard 1.50 V operating voltage. Though CPU-Z’s chart isn’t wide enough to contain all of these module’s SPD values, our motherboard automatically set these to CAS 9-9-9-24.

More impressive than specifications is the CT3KIT25664BA1339 6 GB kit’s $98 Web price.

OCZ Intel Extreme Series DDR3-1333 CAS 7

We asked every company to send the one product it believed would be best-able to win today’s value comparison, and OCZ decided to let us chose by sending its four lowest-priced premium memory products. With a Web price of only $80 at test (and press) time, its part number OCZ3X1333LV6GK Intel i7 Triple Channel PC3-10666 (DDR3-1333) looked like a sure bet for value leadership.

Rated at both CAS 8 and CAS 7 DDR3-1333 timings, our motherboard reported XMP values of 8-9-9-21 and 7-8-8-21, rather than the stated 8-8-8-20 and 7-7-7-20 values assigned by the manufacturer. This is an issue we've seen with several XMP-capable motherboards, and that’s one reason why we usually recommend configuring overclock-rated memory manually.

The only store to sell part number OCZ3X1333LV6GK for $80, ZipZoomFly no longer has these in stock. Because we’re not certain what the price will be when these are finally restocked, we used the next-lowest Web price of $100 in our value analysis.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
58 Comments Comment from the forums
  • aspireonelover
    Great review, this helped me determine with determining about DDR3 6GB kits. Since I'm in the middle of building my core i7 rig. thx!
    btw, isn't there any cheaper ram on the way as well?
    Reply
  • Crashman
    These were all available for under $90 at the July 3 price deadline. Amazing what's happened since, eh?
    Reply
  • pirateboy
    rather silly not to include any gskill ram
    Reply
  • neiroatopelcc
    Is 1.65v really needed?
    I recently built an i7 mashine with 2x6gb ocz gold modules.
    Instead of running them at their rated 1600mhz @ 1.65v I decided to go for 1333 @ 7-7-6-17 - and that @ stock 1.5v ; I don't really get the point of feeding them more juice just to get timings a tad lower, or frequency a tad up.
    Reply
  • hixbot
    With the minimal performance gains from high-end RAM, glad to see an evaluation of the "cheap" stuff. Good work.
    Reply
  • bk420
    I wish these came in 2 or 4 packs also!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Reply
  • inmytaxi
    OCZ DDR3 3x 2 GB kits, the Gold and the Plat at 1333 and 1600, dropped below 100 bucks at NewEgg and ZipZoomFly three months ago. They've been $89 - 99 PLUS a 20 rebate with FREE shipping there on and off since April.

    The statement at the heading is inaccurate.
    Reply
  • monkeysweat
    what about kingston ram?
    Reply
  • itadakimasu
    I picked up some 12gb ocz platinum 1333 kits for $135, and 140 off of amazon. Found them using bing.com/cashback.
    Reply
  • xanubisx
    do not use ocz's xmp set the memory yourself. On my memory the 1600mhz with xmp i tried the xmp 1600 setting and it cooked my i7 cpu. After the shitty rma process i installed the memory and set all the timings myself and found out that the xmp profile set the qpi voltage to 1.4 when it runs fine on 1.105 (i think) the default qpi voltage anyways i learnt my lesson ocz might have cheap memory but dont use the xmp.
    Reply