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Corsair XMS vs. Dominator

I

imported_Wanderlust

Junior Member
I'm going to pick up the EVGA x58 board and an i7 920 (MicroCenter has them for $225 right now). I was looking at memory on NewEgg and noticed that pricing was the same for the XMS and Dominator 1600.

Was wondering which would be best? I did notice the timing is different XMS (9-9-9-24) / Dominator (8-8-8-24) but I'm really sure what's going to benefit me the most for gaming/Photoshop/some video editing. I'll OC slightly but I'm not really out to set records. 🙂

Thanks for any advice. I do like this price range, so if there's something else in that area that you think would be better with this board, I'm all ears. 🙂 I'm still running XP and will probably be until Windows 7 so I'm just interested in the 3GB kits.

Compare Link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...5223%2CN82E16820145225
 
Originally posted by: Wanderlust
Was wondering which would be best? I did notice the timing is different XMS (9-9-9-24) / Dominator (8-8-8-24) but I'm really sure what's going to benefit me the most for gaming/Photoshop/some video editing. I'll OC slightly but I'm not really out to set records. 🙂

Compare Link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...5223%2CN82E16820145225
Click to expand...
OF THESE TWO, buy the Dominator... It's $1 cheaper and CAS is rated faster.
It's rated at 1.65v, but both of the kits are. :roll:

If you're sold on the need for DDR3-1600 memory, I'd buy the G.Skill 3GB kit rated at 1.5-1.6v.
 
So lower voltage is better than lower CAS latency? As far as being "sold" on 1600, I'm really not.

I've always struggled to completely understand memory... the rest of a system I'm good with I just seem to never grasp what works best in terms of memory. 😕

Thanks for the reply, Blain! :beer:
 
Look over the memory speed test results in AT article on the i7.

Almost no difference in real-world performance going from DDR3-1066 to DDR3-1600.

G.Skill 2x2GB DDR3-1333 @ 1.5V $80 shipped

Buy this and slap in 4GB $40 cheaper than the 3GB kits you're considering.

If you look at the previous page of the article you will see minimal difference in dual versus triple channel (honestly, memory configuration just seems to have almost no real impact on system performance these days).

You can also add two more kits once you upgrade to W7 for a total of 12GB of RAM. And by that time prices should have fallen even further as DDR3 production ramps up (six weeks ago I bought that exact G.Skill kit above for $125 & thought it was a great deal).
 
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