best 8 gb ram

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SSinner

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Gonna pull the trigger on an i 5 build, microcenter here i come. I cant decide on what memory to buy. doesnt have to be from microcenter just good and under 50 bucks. i read somwhere that sandybridge doesnt like 1.65 volt ram. is this true? also whats a good air aftermarket cpu cooler. first build un 3 years, just gotta get to the mc store without the old lady finding out!
 
Anything over 1.5v is not officially supported or recommended. 1.65v will work however so that it is up to you whether you want to risk it. But I don't believe 1.5v carries a price premium or availability issue anymore over 1.65v at 1333/1600 speeds.

Also highspeed memory is much less needed with SB/IB. DDR1600 is probably what makes sense at the moment price wise (I believe the price difference over 1333 is minimal now? Not sure if its like that everywhere). Just don't feel the need to pay anything significantly more for something higher speed. Maybe consider 1866 if you are getting IB but I wouldn't pay a lot extra for it.
 
These are some of the best. It is OOS right now but the 4GB single sticks are in stock still.

As for HSF, the 212 is one of the best bang for the buck, and it has a MIR right now also.
 
A friend and I both got two pairs each for our z77 builds. I'm having pretty good success, he's not. It's possible that they aren't the miracle memory that everyone is making them our to be, just sayin'.
 
Dephcon said:
A friend and I both got two pairs each for our z77 builds. I'm having pretty good success, he's not. It's possible that they aren't the miracle memory that everyone is making them our to be, just sayin'.
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Do you both have the same motherboard and using the same settings? Your friend's set being poor overclockers could just as likely be the user or the motherboard at fault as it is the RAM.
 
burningrave101 said:
Do you both have the same motherboard and using the same settings? Your friend's set being poor overclockers could just as likely be the user or the motherboard at fault as it is the RAM.
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He's using an UD5 and way more into overclocking than I am. It's possible its his mobo but everyone seems to love Gigabyte these days.
 
The best part about the Samsungs is you never have to worry about RAM clearance issues no matter what kind of cooler you install.
 
BlueFireIce said:
The Samsungs have crappy everything stock, but they OC like a beast, that's why they are so popular. The ones you listed are 1.65v at 1600 with not really that great of timings, while the Samsungs do 2000Mhz+ in most cases with just as good timings and 1.5v.
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2133 w/ 1.41v for me with no trouble. Or they can run stock with about 1.20v if you want, no big deal. They're versatile. And almost no one has problems with them..
 
I got some Team Xtreme ram that is 8GB / 1.5V at 2133 pretty solid ram so far. I like it alot. caught it on sale for $55 on the egg.
 
I just picked some of these up due to the recomendation in this thread. Running at 1833 with no tweaking. I set the voltage to 1.5. Didn't realize I could go even lower!

I'll be tweaking it some more tonight. Let's see what timings they can do at 2133, if at all.

Thanks guys!
 
deltronik said:
I just picked some of these up due to the recomendation in this thread. Running at 1833 with no tweaking. I set the voltage to 1.5. Didn't realize I could go even lower!

I'll be tweaking it some more tonight. Let's see what timings they can do at 2133, if at all.

Thanks guys!
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2133? Easy. Try 1.425v 10-10-10-27 1T
 
Wish there were 8gb DIMM versions of that Samsung RAM... Maybe later this year. For now, on a new X79 build, I went with the Mushkin Silverline 1.5v 1333 9-9-9-24T. I have similarly specced 4gb Mushkin DIMMs in my current AM3+1090T gaming rig, and I have not had a single issue with them.

It's really not worth stressing over RAM, in the vast majority of actual compute problems, including all games, the difference between 1333 timings and 2133/2400 is less than 1%. This is because even with the RAM being twice as fast, it's still orders of magnitude slower than the CPU's cache. And almost everything your computer does is not RAM bandwidth bound, if it was, there would be little point in having today's fast CPUs, with fast caches, since they'd spend all their time idling, waiting on the RAM.
 
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BlueFireIce said:
The Samsungs have crappy everything stock, but they OC like a beast, that's why they are so popular. The ones you listed are 1.65v at 1600 with not really that great of timings, while the Samsungs do 2000Mhz+ in most cases with just as good timings and 1.5v.
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They are listed wrong. They are spec'ed at 1.5v actually, timings can run stable at 1600 with 8-8-8-22-30, but yes I suppose they aren't as good as the Samsungs, maybe. Seem to work fine for me.
 
stewartjm said:
It's really not worth stressing over RAM, in the vast majority of actual compute problems, including all games, the difference between 1333 timings and 2133/2400 is less than 1%. This is because even with the RAM being twice as fast, it's still orders of magnitude slower than the CPU's cache. And almost everything your computer does is not RAM bandwidth bound, if it was, there would be little point in having today's fast CPUs, with fast caches, since they'd spend all their time idling, waiting on the RAM.
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That's why this thread left me scratching my head. I didn't know people actually still cared about such minor differences in ram. I personally only care about price/voltage/reliability.
I guess the 'pro benchmark' people need something to do. To each his own I guess.
 
Q1DM6 said:
That's why this thread left me scratching my head. I didn't know people actually still cared about such minor differences in ram. I personally only care about price/voltage/reliability.
I guess the 'pro benchmark' people need something to do. To each his own I guess.
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Depends on what the person does, there are programs that see performance from better RAM, its useless for a gaming rig or the like, however the Samsungs are cheaper than most, can OC like a beast and are super low profile (they are shorter than the ram slots them selves) and as such will work with any high end tower cooler on the market....So why not?
 
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