Help verify the right RAM upgrade for me

J

JR-Orion

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 22, 2010
Messages
126
The last time I shopped for RAM was on Win XP. Went from 2GB to 4GB for like $30. :) But that was years back, and I'm a bit out of practice.

Motherboard- Asus P6X58D Premium. Core i7 930 2.8GHz overclocked to 3.8GHz by the system builder (Digital Storm). The board has six RAM slots and can support up to 24GB max.

What I currently have- A triple channel kit of 3 sticks of 2GB each. I think it's DDR3 1600.
According to CPU-Z the timings are 9 9 9 24. 708MHz DRAM freq. XMP speed extension. Manufacturer says "STT," which I've never heard of. Part number STT-WB160CL0901

I'd like to go to 12GB RAM. Maybe the easiest thing would be to just buy another 3 x 2GB kit from STT, but again I'm not familiar with that brand.

Any advice? Is that CPU overclock mean I'm going to have to be really picky with RAM?
Would something like this work for me?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225

I'm also not opposed to retiring my current 3 x2GB kit and just going with something new, if the price is right.

And for what it's worth, I know zip about latency, timing, and voltage, but I'm willing to learn.

Thanks much!
 
From Asus.com

6 x DIMM, Max. 24 GB, DDR3 2000(O.C.)*/1600/1333/1066 Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory
Triple channel memory architecture
Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)
*Hyper DIMM support is subject to the physical characteristics of individual CPUs.
*Refer to www.asus.com or this user manual for the Memory QVL (Qualified Vendors Lidts).

I wouldnt worry so much about the qualified vendor list. Asus, and really any mobo manufacturer, just doesn't have the time and resources to test each and every brand, type, speed of ram.

I have used and had very good results with the following:

http://www.mushkin.com/
http://www.crucial.com/
http://www.corsair.com/

I have heard good things about:

http://www.gskill.com/ (have some unopened waiting for a few hard drives to rebuild my system)

I have had not so good experience with but other people like:

http://www.kingston.com/

Just make sure to get DDR3 Triple channel and your set. I would go with the fastest your board/Cpu supports that is in your budget. That looks like either 1600 or 2000.

I think your likely best off removing the old dimms and replacing them with all new ones. Even with the speeds and timings the same I have run into problems with dimms being rated at different voltages when from different manufacturers.

The ones you have linked look fine. I just wanted to give you some options with the above links. If you can afford it populate all the dimm slots or better yet get 3*4's instead of 3*2's. More dimms can mean better memory interleaving but can also mean more noise and maybe the need to increase voltage, less dimms can be more expensive 6*2 vs 3*4 and more stable. More memory is always better.

You can always run ram slower then it is rated when mixing types, but weird little problems can creep in.

You have 64-bit OS, right? Just checking I assume you do.

There are people here who know a lot more then I, this is just basic info since you are saying you don't have much research into this.
 
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