Is 2000Mhz RAM worth it?

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ChronoDetector

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I currently have 12GB of DDR3 at 1600Mhz, and I'm thinking about upgrading to 2000Mhz. Is it worth it or not?
 
What are you doing with that computer? If memory benchmarks then yes. If its just games, then no.
 
Mainly creating videos, decoding and yeah gaming. Couldn't care less about my benchmark scores, kinda pointless really.
 
For most things, for video work, (depending on the program, with that 580 you should be using premeire cs5 :D) stuff like HDD reads and writes will be a bottleneck way before the memory is. Similar thing for games, it will be the cpu/gpu as the limiting factor.

One reason why it might be worth doing is more OC experience, but other than that probably not much point.
 
I currently have 12GB of DDR3 at 1600Mhz, and I'm thinking about upgrading to 2000Mhz. Is it worth it or not?
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800MHz ddr3 with tight memory timing vs 1000Mhz with slop memory timings = same same all the way around bandwidth wise but with a faster interconnect from the memory to the chipset

long story sort 1% difference in performance or something close to that {useless} imho your hard earned cash is better spent on more hdd or something then faster ram

be shore as well when getting a high speed ram kit that they respect the 1.5v on the memory topic,if they don't and their trying to tell you to use more then their just over voting crappy ram and anyone can do that with heat sinks

going all in on the memory timing topic can give you an ege too you know,just in a different way
 
Have you tried over clocking your ram to 2000mhz?

You have high end socket/cpu/video card/memory/PSU... With some effort i think you could could over clock your current RAM to 2000mhz.
 
I agree with everyone else. I wouldn't even buy 2000mhz ram if I was buying ram for a new build and didn't already have other ram.

1600mhz can usually be overclocked to 1866 or even 2000.
 
ya but buddy going to need some heat sinks on his\her at that point

don't want to push the ram on that topic if theirs no way to cool it .stuff will just brake
 
Denominative Vomit said:
ya but buddy going to need some heat sinks on his\her at that point

don't want to push the ram on that topic if theirs no way to cool it .stuff will just brake
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By loosing up timings he wont need that much voltage. He might even be able to keep the same vdimm voltage settings. Probably going to have increase vtt though. 2000mhz isn't that simple to over clock. Does need a good MB and the OP does have a nice MB so I think the 2000mhz over clock attempt is worth a shot to see if it can be done.
 
I tried to overclock it to 2000Mhz, it will not boot and I want to stay below 1.64V, I've even used volts over 1.7V and it made things worse. I've eventually upgrade to faster RAM one day but I'm just asking if an upgrade is necessary right now.
 
No. Not worth system stability over smallish gains, unless you are going to invest in some upgraded cooling for the RAM, be happy with what you have and look to other areas if you want to upgrade. For example, buy an SSD instead for the programs/OS. Will boost overall system speed much more than a RAM OC ever would over what you have now.
 
DeathPrincess said:
No. Not worth system stability over smallish gains, unless you are going to invest in some upgraded cooling for the RAM, be happy with what you have and look to other areas if you want to upgrade. For example, buy an SSD instead for the programs/OS. Will boost overall system speed much more than a RAM OC ever would over what you have now.
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Agreed. Once you go SSD you will never want to go back to mechanical disks. Even my friends who I've managed to persuade to buy an entry level SSD (30/40gb ones) now wish they'd have bought a high capacity SSD instead.
 
in any case before even thinking about overclocking ram you need to know what it is your working with and we don't as yet

as well whats your cooling setup for the ram in question if any OP.
 
How much rise in temps would running the RAM at 2000 Mhz be? How would you improve cooling on them if need be?
 
i have no idea.
too many things come in to play on this topic.
just start off at default speed and voltage and check the ram temp after say a small speed\voltage increase and take it from their.

improve memory speed\timings and voltage in baby steps and check the memory temp in a paranoid stile :D and you should be ok

and download the white paper for the ram chips your working with before hand so you know what it is your working with and what its limits are.
and this gos for all memory chips you find in your computer not just main system ram.
 
For overclocking, having faster memory means you can either:

A) Run it at close to what it's rated for (speeds/voltage/timings) while overclocking.
B) Underclock it and lower the timings, then overclock it. If you get my meaning.

Of course faster memory means faster programs/games/whatever that need/want/like lots of fast memory.
 
Outside of extreme multitasking or working with very large files, the extra bandwidth gives you almost no return after 1600 (i was actually just wondering whether I should move from 1333 to 1866 for my next system, but there really isn't any point).
 
I'll go with everyone else. Ran my ram @ 2000 instead of 1600, can't say I really saw a difference.
 
Unless your into extreme overclocking no. No real world application can fill that amount of bandwidth.
 
Alxs said:
I'll go with everyone else. Ran my ram @ 2000 instead of 1600, can't say I really saw a difference.
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Really? Did you run any benches? Try running 7zip and winrar built in benchmarks. I am curious to see
 
Spooony said:
Unless your into extreme overclocking no. No real world application can fill that amount of bandwidth.
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Incorrect. Memory bandwidth does make a difference with extremely large files, any archiving application will show that. Same goes for anything that is going to use a ton of RAM. The amount and the bandwidth are both considerations then.

For most of us (gamers, it people) bandwidth doesn't mean that much.
 
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