Advice on Core i7 OC'ing w/ 24GB RAM?

[Kaido]

Looking at doing an OC with 24GB DDR3 on an i7-920. Board is MSI Pro-E. Would ideally like to do 4GHz on air with a Megahalem & dual 120's (large rackmount case with 9 case fans, lots of airflow), but I'm concerned about the large amount of RAM being a limiting factor. Right now I have the stock cooler, Pro-E, 920, and a 4GB 1333 stick:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231310

Would the 1600 be worth it?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231313

I don't know if I can get 4GHz out of 24GB. If I can do 4GHz on 12GB, I might be willing to do that (primary workstation for video editing & virtualization, need LOTS of memory, so ideally 24GB). If I can do 3 or 3.2GHz on 24GB, I'd probably be willing to go with that too. 1333 okay, or should I invest in 1600? I already picked up a 1333 to test, but I can return/sell it and go with 1600 if that'd be better.

Also, Megahalem the one to go with? Case has two 80mm fans on the rear and I don't really want to mod, although I was looking at the Corsair H50 (simple watercooling kit). Thx.

 

[Spartacus288]

Every CPU varies in overclocking ability, so you may have a jewel that can hit 4Ghz with no trouble, or you may have a dud that can't hit 3.1 no matter what you do. But you should be able to hit at least 3.4Ghz even with the full complement of RAM. There's really only one way to find out- try it and be careful.

 

[Kaido]

Every CPU varies in overclocking ability, so you may have a jewel that can hit 4Ghz with no trouble, or you may have a dud that can't hit 3.1 no matter what you do. But you should be able to hit at least 3.4Ghz even with the full complement of RAM. There's really only one way to find out- try it and be careful.

Yeah, I've just never overclocked with more than 8 gigs before. Do you think it'd be worth it going to 1600 DDR3? I'm also considering just doing 12GB of 1333 and seeing how it goes for now, then maybe in a year or so going 6-core & 24GB once the prices drop some. Or 8-core :awe:

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I'm curious what you'd be doing where more RAM would come in more handy over a faster CPU. I'd imagine you could get more out of a hexacore Gulftown + 12GB than a quad + 24GB of ram.

Heck, a quad + 12GB and the saved money invested in SSDs might be the best overall bang for your buck, a ton of RAM might not do you any good if you're being held back by your hard drives.

 

[Daemas]

When OCing, is it the GB of ram or the number of sticks? Is 3x2gb sticks any easier than 3x4gb?

 

[Kaido]

I'm curious what you'd be doing where more RAM would come in more handy over a faster CPU. I'd imagine you could get more out of a hexacore Gulftown + 12GB than a quad + 24GB of ram.

Heck, a quad + 12GB and the saved money invested in SSDs might be the best overall bang for your buck, a ton of RAM might not do you any good if you're being held back by your hard drives.

Video editing & virtualization. Sucks up a lot of RAM. HDDs/RAID is already taken care of. I could get by with 12GB, but 24GB would be ideal. Heck, more would be ideal, but i7 only wants to support 24GB with one chip, and it fits nicely in my budget

 

[Borealis7]

are you sure you want to overclock a virtualization WORKstation? stability could very well be your limiting factor.

 

[cliftonite]

are you sure you want to overclock a virtualization WORKstation? stability could very well be your limiting factor.

Yeah, since you are spending so much money already why not go for the 950 or the 960, it would only be another $300 which could be worth it.

 

[cliftonite]

BTW, I know you were looking at the Red Scarlet, is this the rig that will be used to edit the footage? Sounds like a great setup.

 

[aigomorla]

wouldnt it be more effective to get a gulftown + 12gb or ram instead of getting a 920 + 24gigs of ram?

im trying to analyze the cost here for ya..

i understand ram requirements... however if u have a faster cpu, cant u lower the ram requirements with more threads?

When OCing, is it the GB of ram or the number of sticks? Is 3x2gb sticks any easier than 3x4gb?

3 sticks is always easier to oc then 6.

So your question, the answer is the same.

 

[nyker96]

holy mother, 24G of RAM that is quite a bit. of course this is a guest but I have to agree with aigomorla, the gulftown+even 8GB of ram might be faster still than 24GB/i7 920s.

 

[Anubis]

holy mother, 24G of RAM that is quite a bit. of course this is a guest but I have to agree with aigomorla, the gulftown+even 8GB of ram might be faster still than 24GB/i7 920s.

comp here at work has 32 gigs and 16 cores

its fun to play with

but yea as Aigo said depending on your specific needs for this thing you might be better off going with a 6 core CPU and less ram

 

[Kaido]

are you sure you want to overclock a virtualization WORKstation? stability could very well be your limiting factor.

Well, my current rig is a Q9550 @ 3.2ghz and it's been solid (did stability testing) so I'm not too worried about that. As long as I can get at least 3Ghz out of the chip I'll be moderately satisfied

 

[Kaido]

Yeah, since you are spending so much money already why not go for the 950 or the 960, it would only be another $300 which could be worth it.

Already got the 920, plus working within a budget. About $1200 left, which will cover the RAM & heatsink and a couple odds-n-ends hehe.

 

[Kaido]

BTW, I know you were looking at the Red Scarlet, is this the rig that will be used to edit the footage? Sounds like a great setup.

Yup, this will be the primary editing rig

 

[Kaido]

wouldnt it be more effective to get a gulftown + 12gb or ram instead of getting a 920 + 24gigs of ram?

im trying to analyze the cost here for ya..

i understand ram requirements... however if u have a faster cpu, cant u lower the ram requirements with more threads?



3 sticks is always easier to oc then 6.

So your question, the answer is the same.

Well, I don't mind waiting for the system to crunch a little longer, but I'm constantly maxing out my 8GB system right now and I'm not even doing half of what I want, so the additional overhead would be great.

 

[Spikesoldier]

wouldnt it be more effective to get a gulftown + 12gb or ram instead of getting a 920 + 24gigs of ram?

im trying to analyze the cost here for ya..

i understand ram requirements... however if u have a faster cpu, cant u lower the ram requirements with more threads?



3 sticks is always easier to oc then 6.

So your question, the answer is the same.

ill wedge that the 3x2gb is going to be easier, although all three channels are populated, its much easier to OC like with a C2D with 2x1gb vs 2x2gb. the third channel in comparison to DC C2D also complicates things by further burdening the IMC.

i guess density does matter, and we see a lot more 2gb sticks failing than the 1gb sticks these days. lower density sticks are also prime OCing candidates as they can be speed demons as well.

 

[Rubycon]

I'd go with a dual socket board with 12GB per socket. This way you have the same amount of ram, twice the cores (8 more cores if you go with 6 core Xeons) and much more processing for encoding!

 

[nyker96]

looks like what this guy need is a professional workstation class type of machine like the ones made by Intel/HP/Sun. multi socketed and high ram requirements. op you are looking at the wrong type of hardware. you need something for pro not for family applications.

 

[Kaido]

I'd go with a dual socket board with 12GB per socket. This way you have the same amount of ram, twice the cores (8 more cores if you go with 6 core Xeons) and much more processing for encoding!

Hah, I wish! I had to re-allocate funds from my camera budget into this rig, so the single-chip Core i7 rig seemed like the most cost-effective method to do an upgrade. The RAM was the primary reason for the upgrade, and having 8 cores w/ HT was the second. It's a nice bump up from my Q9550

 

[Kaido]

looks like what this guy need is a professional workstation class type of machine like the ones made by Intel/HP/Sun. multi socketed and high ram requirements. op you are looking at the wrong type of hardware. you need something for pro not for family applications.

Well, it's a Hackintosh, so I had to be picky about the parts. Plus I'm on a limited budget, so doing a full-fledged dual-chip Mac Pro was more or less out of the question. For $520 I got an MSI Pro-E, 2.66GHz Core i7-920, and 4GB RAM. The base Mac Pro (2.66ghz Quad Nehalem, 3GB RAM) is $2499. 16GB RAM on that machine from Apple is $1850 extra, whereas I could get 24GB of DDR3 for the Pro-E for $930. So for cost-effectiveness & OS support, this was the right decision for my budget. Although I wouldn't complain if someone wanted to send me a Boxx workstation :awe:

 

[Kaido]

So is it worth going with 24GB of 1600? Or should I just save some green and do 1333?

 

[Rubycon]

If you have access to a divider that allows 1333 to run at higher bclk since you're locked at 20(21 w/turbo) then 1333 is fine...

HOWEVER it's not much more and 1600 gives you lots more options like tighter timings are <1600 speed. Sorry don't have experience with that RAM in particular.