with the i7, doesn't it make more sense to go with 1.5v when possible? not like 1.5v is particularly hard to come by these days, i mean. is there a reason for 1.65v other than the particular stick of ram might have tighter timings, etc?
It is a no-brainer.. i went from ocz 1600 gold (was cheap) 88824 1.65v to gskill 87824 1.5v and since the memory controller is built into the chip it lowered my cores an avg 4c under load.. it actually allowed me to get another 200mhz out of the chip at the same voltage. Not to mention the ram runs nice and cold.
given the same memory timings you are always better off choosing the ones that work at a lower voltage. as said, you have more flexibility to boost the speed, and I can see it might make a difference on cpu temp.
Agreed. If the OP goes this route, make sure you look at the CAS Latency setting as thre are 1.35V ram 4GB kits from G-Skill that differ from Cas 9 to Cas 7. The Cas 7 ones are a bit futher down the page if your using newegg and looking for the them. The price difference for a 4GB kit going from Cas 9 to the Cas 7 model is only $4.00. So if you were aiming for 8GB of ram, to get the Cas 7 memory its only $8.00 more. $12.00 more if your aiming for 12GB. In anycase, I'd say the better timings are well worth the very small extra cost(like 3.4% more expensive).
will there be any issues running three sticks of the gskill ECO in triple channel?
if not i'll buy three 2x2gb sets and sell three sticks to a friend of mine
I don't see that being a problem. I am using three 2x2GB kits of Ripjaws with no issues whatsoever. I had toyed with the idea of only using 3 sticks and selling the others, but I like the idea of "unlimited" memory available to Windows