Best 16GB RAM Solution for Sandy Bridge?

I would avoid 1.65V kits for all new builds. In my opinion 1.65V ram is of lesser quality since it needs more than the JEDEC 1.5V standard to work..
 
I'm using the Corsair Vengeance kit in my rig with no issues. The system runs great, to be honest.
 
I got 2 separate kits of RipjawsX 2x4GB at 9-9-9-24 timings, 1600MHz and 1.5V from Newegg.ca recently. They went on sale for about 80$ each with free shipping (sale!) a couple of weeks ago. I've had no problems with the two dual channel kits instead of going with a quad channel kit.

As drescherjm said:
I would avoid 1.65V kits for all new builds. In my opinion 1.65V ram is of lesser quality since it needs more than the JEDEC 1.5V standard to work..
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. I'm of the same opinion. It may be that a lot of people are fine with 1.65V for now, but I think the bigger problem is lifetime in the long run.

Before the G-Skill sale went on I was looking at some Mushkin 1333MHz (1.5V) that were the same price. Performance different between 1333MHz and 1600MHz usually isn't worth the price premium.
 
drescherjm said:
I would avoid 1.65V kits for all new builds. In my opinion 1.65V ram is of lesser quality since it needs more than the JEDEC 1.5V standard to work..
Click to expand...

I was going to post a thread about some memory, but glad I stopped by here. You answered my question! :D Thanks! (even though you had no idea. lol)
 
I have a similar need for 16GB of memory on a p67 2600K sandybridge build.

I'm looking at the Gigabyte UD7 and want to have 16 Gigs of memory, but most of the kits are 2x4GB and I would like 2x8GB instead because I keep reading that there is a slowdown if you fill all 4 slots with memory, versus only using 2 of them.

Problem is the 2x8GB modules are hard to come by. I prefer to order from New Egg and prefer G.Skill Ripjaws.

Is it just that the 2x8GB's are not out so much now but will be later in the year, or will they always seem to be limited to the server market only with prices jacked from here to Honalulu?

I would hate to have to install the 2 sets of 2x4GB modules now only to replace them later in the year with a single set of 2x8GB's because it would mean removal of the HSF and remounting it. Pain. Not sure how much it matters but I would only be going with 1600MHz memory. Currently I have an ASUS P67 WS Revolution with all 4 slots filled up and I noticed memory speed bumped down from 1600Mhz to 1333MHZ I beleive. Think I read that will happen if you use all 4 slots versus only 2 slots because of slot sharing or something (not sure on the exact specifics, I just know it seems odd). Too much sharing going on the P67, mem and the x16 slots, etc.). Wish they wouldn't do that. (i.e. if you have 4 16X slots they should all run at x16 speeds and not slip down to 8x if you have a 3rd card, etc.) And if you have 1600Mhz mem in all 4 slots, it should run at that speed and not bump down to 1333mhz.

http://www.overclock.net/intel-memory/918951-p67-difference-having-2-vs-4-a.html

191243d1295511242-p67-difference-having-2-vs-4-2vs4-ram-slots.png
 
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Spooony said:
where did you see filling 4 slots slow down your system?
I would get 4 x 4gb sticks.
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Everywhere, plus my own experience of having 4x4GB of 1600Mhz in an ASUS WS Revolution only running at 1333.

I'll try to post one of the locations. As always, I failed to bookmark it.

Not that it slows down your system so much, but that the memory runs at a slower speed (i.e. 1333 versus 1600mhz) if you use 4 slots instead of only 2 slots due to memory slot sharing or some funny business like that.

I think this thread discusses it a bit but I've seen many others:
http://www.overclock.net/intel-memory/918951-p67-difference-having-2-vs-4-a.html

http://www.overclock.net/intel-memory/890415-implications-using-all-4-memory-slots.html

http://www.overclock.net/intel-cpus/917154-sucky-sandy-bridge-memory-controllers.html

"Ive heard the same thing. Its suppose to be putting more stress on the memory controller with 4 sticks."
 
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LittleTinyScooby said:
Everywhere, plus my own experience of having 4x4GB of 1600Mhz in an ASUS WS Revolution only running at 1333.

I'll try to post one of the locations. As always, I failed to bookmark it.

Not that it slows down your system so much, but that the memory runs at a slower speed (i.e. 1333 versus 1600mhz) if you use 4 slots instead of only 2 slots due to memory slot sharing or some funny business like that.

I think this thread discusses it a bit but I've seen many others:
http://www.overclock.net/intel-memory/918951-p67-difference-having-2-vs-4-a.html

http://www.overclock.net/intel-memory/890415-implications-using-all-4-memory-slots.html

"Ive heard the same thing. Its suppose to be putting more stress on the memory controller with 4 sticks."

http://www.overclock.net/intel-cpus/917154-sucky-sandy-bridge-memory-controllers.html
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Well if you want 8gb modules then over priced kingston hyper x are the ones to look at.
Here look at these
http://www.google.com/m/products/ca...635&ei=Uf-bTdD3B4rhjgetm6TIAg&ved=0CBAQ8wIwAw
Just make sure their non ecc ones
 
Spooony said:
Well if you want 8gb modules then over priced kingston hyper x are the ones to look at.
Here look at these
http://www.google.com/m/products/ca...635&ei=Uf-bTdD3B4rhjgetm6TIAg&ved=0CBAQ8wIwAw
Just make sure their non ecc ones
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That's the problem, way overpriced and not the brand I prefer. I guess I may just have to take the speed hit of using all 4 slots versus only 2. Maybe it's not that noticeable, but I have been coming across people talking about it quite a bit lately and I wanted my 2nd build to be an improvement on the first. I didn't read about the slot issue until after I put together the first system.
 
Skakruk said:
Corsairs guide for one advises against populating all the RAM slots, and another thing: on their forum I was getting VERY strong suggestions not to use two 2x4GB kits because "all the modules haven't been tested together". Even if the two kits were the same make model and revision, they were making out like it's more trouble than it's worth. Personally I thought they were being a bit unrealistic... There aren't many 4x4GB kits.
Click to expand...
It's a bunch of crap really. It's often cheaper to buy sticks individually over kits. 4 stick (and 6 stick) kits are all overpriced.
 
Blue Fox said:
There are no 8gb sticks available for desktops. Those are ECC registered and won't work.
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Your right. I was thinking about the macs and DDR2. The hyper x 12gb kit was the tripple channel kit for x58 that was 4gb x 3 that I was thinking about.
 
Blue Fox said:
It's a bunch of crap really. It's often cheaper to buy sticks individually over kits. 4 stick (and 6 stick) kits are all overpriced.
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So let me get this. There's no 8gb modules there's only 4gb but we can't populate all the slots coz it cause problems. What is the slots there for then? If your board gives you trouble filling the slots then there's a problem. I think most of the time the people got ram problems by using sticks with different voltages or buying OCZ stuff whither they're mixed up branding. People seem to forget that the modern cpu got a IMC. Socket 1156 run on 1.5v and 1366 on 1.65v. Sandy bridge luckily is very robust and can take both
 
So let me get this. There's no 8gb modules there's only 4gb but we can't populate all the slots coz it cause problems. What is the slots there for then?
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Running your ram at Intel supported frequencies. Remember that the memory controller is on the CPU and the maximum Intel supported frequency is 1333 MHz.

If your board gives you trouble filling the slots then there's a problem.
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Its not the board that is the problem its the IMC inside the CPU was designed to use 1333 MHz ram maximum.
 
Spooony said:
So let me get this. There's no 8gb modules there's only 4gb but we can't populate all the slots coz it cause problems. What is the slots there for then? If your board gives you trouble filling the slots then there's a problem. I think most of the time the people got ram problems by using sticks with different voltages or buying OCZ stuff whither they're mixed up branding. People seem to forget that the modern cpu got a IMC. Socket 1156 run on 1.5v and 1366 on 1.65v. Sandy bridge luckily is very robust and can take both
Click to expand...
Would you have preferred intel to have simply listed the bus speed as 1333 instead of 1333 4 dimm, 1600 2 dimm, like they did years ago. Sticking more stuff on a digital bus always limits its speed (takes longer to stabilize when switching from 0 to 1 or back) and the issue only gets worse at higher frequencies (wht LGA2011 will only be only single channel). This is EE 101 stuff.

Servers with a zillion ram slots get around it by using buffered/registered ram, so that only the buffer chip in each dimm is connected to the bus instead of all 8/16 chips in the module. This allows loads of dimms to be stuck on a single bus without causing problems, but the buffer adds a few cycles of latency as well as increasing the cost so it only shows up on really high end systems, not consumer parts.
 
DanNeely said:
Would you have preferred intel to have simply listed the bus speed as 1333 instead of 1333 4 dimm, 1600 2 dimm, like they did years ago?
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I think I would have preferred it was listed better. With the necessary PCI-X sharing, they mention it right in the motherboard specs. They tell you if you use that 3rd 16 PCI-X slot that you will not get the full x16 speed but with mem they many times don't tell you.

So, for the memory item. (4 slots full = 1333, 2 slots = 1600).

How noticeable is this speed difference? Does it show up in quite a few benchmarks?

As it is now, according to this limitation, it seems like your memory would be running almost 300Mhz faster if you only use 2 slots for a total of 8GB of memory. And, we can't use two 8GB sticks because they are either ECC or cost prohibitive. I had heard there will eventally be non-ECC 8GB sticks but who knows when.

So this 300Mhz drop when using all 4 slots, does it really add up, or is it something we shouldn't care about and just be happy with running at 1333?

Or, are some people staying at only 8GB of memory so that they can run their mem at 1600MHZ without overclocking? Just curious what the 300Mhz adds up to in real world speed.

Also, are most people that are filling all 4 slots then also overclocking the mem to run at 1600Mhz? That seems odd to have to overclock something to get it to run at the speed it was intended to run at in the first place.

This person says 1-4% slower with 1333 versus 1600. Does that sound about right?

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/284960-30-faster-1600-memory-1333-gaming
 
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outside of memory benchmarks speed and timings almost never matter. The p4 was the last consumer level CPU that was bottlenecked for memory (high end Xeon's in multi socket systems suffered for longer because of higher core counts and in the c2 era having to share a big chunk of the FSB for chatting with other CPUs). If you build your box to do nothing but winrar isos 24/7 it's a concern, but winrar is one of the very few real world applications to have the same memory usage pattern as synthetic memory benchmarks.

I don't have any SB systems to check, but the manual for my x58 (asus P6T) system explicitly says that 1600 is only supported in one dimm per channel mode. That said intel has to write the specs for the crappy chips in the bottom bin, not just the normal/excellent ones. You can overclock the a dual bank configuration as well, it just won't be able to go as high as the single bank config.
 
Populating all 4 slots does not limit you to 1333. The Sandy Bridge controller is proving to be pretty formidable, in fact the Corsair Vengeance 16GB kit runs at 1866 and beyond.
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That is a single CPU. Remember that ever chip is different. And with all overclocking the results will vary. This is like showing 1 i7 2006K runnning at 5.2 GHz and saying all of them can do that.
 
My point was that populating all 4 slots does not limit you to 1333, as this thread was suggesting.
 
I'm currently running the Vengeance 4x4GB kit at 1600MHz at stock voltages and settings. I wouldn't call that overclocking.
 
drescherjm said:
Running your ram at Intel supported frequencies. Remember that the memory controller is on the CPU and the maximum Intel supported frequency is 1333 MHz.



Its not the board that is the problem its the IMC inside the CPU was designed to use 1333 MHz ram maximum.
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The IMC on SB got no problem running higher rated ram. It can run even 2000mhz ones on the 2600k
For a cheap 16gb kit
Here op
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B003O...=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003OSYW1S
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Hmmm....I'm running 4 X 4 GB at 1600 at no problems.

I've heard that using all 4 slots would hamper overclocking ability...and even that is a matter of degree, because it depends on how aggressively one attempts to overclock.
 
Just get 1333, cas 9 is fine, and spend the extra money on a 2600k, over clock to 4.0ghz (should happen at stock voltage), and your client will be happy. You will invariably be able to overclock further, but 4.0 is a great place to be. The power requirements are minuscule at that setting, and should prove no challenge to the stock cooling.


For the price difference between 1333 cas 9 and other chips with higher speeds and/or lower latencies, your client will experience greater performance benefit with a K processor.

Even if by some chance you are building a h67 rig, and the client intends to use the integrated video, the iGPU on the K series processors is about twice as fast as the nonK.

Even if your client ask for something specifically, remember you are the "expert", and if you manage to get your client something better for the same price, then you are more likely to get referred or gain repeat business from the same client.
 
AQ_OC said:
Hmmm....I'm running 4 X 4 GB at 1600 at no problems.

I've heard that using all 4 slots would hamper overclocking ability...and even that is a matter of degree, because it depends on how aggressively one attempts to overclock.
Click to expand...

How are you acheiving this? When I pop in my 1600Mhz memory in all 4 slots, it defaults to only 1333. Are you overclocking it?
 
My memory has two profiles, SPD and XMP. By default, the BIOS initially used the SPD profile which set the RAM to 1333. Usually there's a setting in the BIOS to enable XMP timings. I just switched mine to 1600 and it picked up the XMP timings. And yes, Intel, refers to this as overclocking.
 
Strafe said:
My memory has two profiles, SPD and XMP. By default, the BIOS initially used the SPD profile which set the RAM to 1333. Usually there's a setting in the BIOS to enable XMP timings. I just switched mine to 1600 and it picked up the XMP timings. And yes, Intel, refers to this as overclocking.
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Ahh. that makes sense. I think I've seen those BIOS settings as well.

From everything I've read it seemed to indicate overclocking was the requirement needed and it seems you have confirmed that as well. thanks
 
I am currently running 16GB of Corsair Vengeance ram @ 1600MHz with no issues what so ever. In fact my CPU is overclocked too, it's running at 4.4GHz. (never pushed higher) All i've done is change the ratio from 34 to 44. There was no bus speed change.

Do NOT believe all this shit that you can't run 4 sticks at 1600MHz. I don't know where those guys are getting their information.

memory.png
 
Whisperfang said:
I am currently running 16GB of Corsair Vengeance ram @ 1600MHz with no issues what so ever. In fact my CPU is overclocked too, it's running at 4.4GHz. (never pushed higher) All i've done is change the ratio from 34 to 44. There was no bus speed change.

Do NOT believe all this shit that you can't run 4 sticks at 1600MHz. I don't know where those guys are getting their information.
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I agree, I have 4 sticks in my rig at 1600mhz.
 
Do NOT believe all this shit that you can't run 4 sticks at 1600MHz. I don't know where those guys are getting their information.
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I was just pointing out that 1600 MHz is an overclock of the memory controller (IMC) that is inside the CPU. As intel is concerned 1333 MHz is the highest supported frequency. I do not think overclocking your IMC to 1600 MHz will cause any trouble even with 4 sticks for most users. Just like most i7 920s will have no problem at all hitting 3.2GHz @ stock voltage.
 
The "slowdown" that I think is really being mentioned is when all banks are populated because the controller will issues at 2T instead of 1T. The difference in this shows in benchmarking by a small amount when all banks are used. The "real" difference has been argued to be negligible in true performance. Use Whisperfang's pic, as an example. At the bottom you can see if your memory is being issued with 1 clock or 2 clocks when using CPU-z.

http://www.google.com/webhp?sourcei...=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=384aef4afa8e1652&ion=1
 
LittleTinyScooby said:
I think I would have preferred it was listed better. With the necessary PCI-X sharing, they mention it right in the motherboard specs. They tell you if you use that 3rd 16 PCI-X slot that you will not get the full x16 speed but with mem they many times don't tell you.

So, for the memory item. (4 slots full = 1333, 2 slots = 1600).
Click to expand...

I am running the following setups:

Asus P6t Del V2/i7 920 with 24GB (6x4GB Mushkin Blackline) at DDR31600

Asus Sabertooth P67/i7 2600k with 16GB (4x4GB GSkill Ripjaws) at DDR31600

Zero issues running the memory at rated speeds in both cases.

Everywhere, plus my own experience of having 4x4GB of 1600Mhz in an ASUS WS Revolution only running at 1333.
Click to expand...

You have to set the timings manually in your bios. This is typical with a lot of motherboards/ram combinations even when all the DIMM slots are not populated. Its not like the mobo forces you into running slower speeds.
 
bobzilla23 said:
I got 2 separate kits of RipjawsX 2x4GB at 9-9-9-24 timings,
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I have Ripjaw and manually set the timings to 8-8-8-24 and 1.6v. MB sets to 9-9-9-24 but it can do better than that. Probably can do 7-7-7-24 but haven't tried it yet.
 
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