Low Latency or More Memory?

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noid370

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Feb 27, 2008
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Sup!

I am building a new PC and I am trying to decide if I should go with DDR3-1600 (Dominator-12800C7*4GB CMP4GX3M2C1600C7) and max out at 8GIG or go with CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB CMP8GX3M2A1600C9 and max out at 12GIG

Will it be that much of a performance difference with 7-8-7-20-2T latency compared to 9-9-9-24. I prefer to max out at 12GIG's but if the latency will make a big difference in performance then I will go with the low latency option.

Before I decide I wanted to put it out there to you guys for help on my decision. Thanks in advance.
 
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Let me start by saying I've lived with 4 gigs for the past 3 years, and I've never once had a problem. I've had audiosurf, Crysis, photoshop, and firefox open at the same time, and not come close to 90% usage, even in Vista.

What platform you're running makes a big difference too. If you're using AMD or LGA1156, those boards run in dual-channel, meaning you need pairs of two sticks to get full speed. If you're buying an LGA1366 system, you need either 3 or 6 sticks to get full speed. Second, memory performance shows very little real world gain after a point. Spending $200 more on the 2133mhz kit won't get you places the 1600mhz sticks can't.

My opinion, get 4 or 6 gigs of 1600mhz on the cheap.
 
I am considering this memory for an Asus P7P55-M system board. I am building it to travel around from home, work, and every where else. I am currently running VM Workstation on it with multiple VM's this is why I was considering the max 12GIG. But I am not sure if VM will benefit from the 12's or not.
 
For most normal usage, 4-8 depending on setup should be more than enough. For some reason I want to put another 6 gigs in my main rig.... not for a huge performance leap but just because I want it. I know it sounds stupid but i like overkill.
 
If you do Distributed Computing, then lower Cas will give you 5% more points. For gaming and less, there's no need. You can also try to overclock the ram by manually tightening the timings.
 
Corsair used to have an interesting bit of information on their website that spoke to the performance of having 8gb vs 4gb. I think you will see a larger difference going that route than paying a premium for slightly lower latency.

There are many articles around the web comparing latencies and performance, so I think you will be able to easily find the details.
 
Go for more ram. You will definitely appreciate the extra doing VM's. I play around with a few VM's myself and having the extra ram is lovely. Also, you could make a small ramdrive and setup your temp. folder on it for extra performance on your file system.
 
Vista and 7 are very creative with memory usage. People should look at memory commit size or page file usage, not %age of memory free - both OS actively keep a large portion of memory free by paging out infrequently used memory pages.

I have 12GB on my workstation, and I'm often running at 6-8GB commit size, but have tons more than that free. Windows 7 in particular has a very nice view in performance monitor of what it's doing with the memory. Basically it uses the extra memory as a cache, but still keeps it ready for apps that really need the memory. Today, 4GB is like 2GB was a few years ago, when people would loudly exclaim how they couldn't imagine how anyone could possibly need more than 2GB ram, etc.
 
In the end it doesn't really matter. You might be able to get those timings out of the *gb kit if you aren't scared to OC.
 
Thats what i decided to do. I maxed out the ram and just over clocked it to get the timings that I wanted. So far they have been running stable without any issues.


Thanks Crew.
 
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