Final hardware purchase!! - DDR3 PC3-12800

[Shagga]

I'm looking for some RAM to complete a refresh of a system I'm building. I'm pretty much decided on 16GB x Dual Channel DDR3 PC3-12800 but don't know which way to go. As the motherboard manual states a voltage of 1.65 or lower I suspect that what I am looking for is something which has low latency and a lower voltage, such as 1.5v and CAS 8 or 9. I guess the difference is minimal.

I was going to go for 2 x 8GB DIMMS from Crucial, however they only do 16GB by using 4 x 4GB DIMMS and I want to leave room for expansion or am I not going to get a low latency on 8GB DIMMS so better to go for 4 x 4GB? (for instance http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=93645B82A5CA7304)

So, which would you recommend? Corsair perhaps or G.Skill?

[edit]

I should say the motherboard is a new ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe.

 

[Shagga]

I bit the bullet and went for Crucial. Just need the processor and GPU now.

 

[Blain]

I would have voted against any Ballistix purchase.
Corsair or G.Skill 1.5v (or less)... Yes

 

[Shagga]

I would have voted against any Ballistix purchase.
Corsair or G.Skill 1.5v (or less)... Yes

That's okay. I have Ballistix DDR2 in my current system and it's been excellent. Having not had any problems with it I went for the stuff that had better CAS timing albeit I know it won't make much difference. Also Crucial has an excellent returns policy.

 

[Uncle Bob]

I'd be very interested to know how you get along with this.

I've just built a system with a very similar spec (Gigabyte Z68 board and 4 x 4GB of Crucial Balistix DDR3-1600 RAM)

What I found was that with all 4 sticks installed, windows and apps just didn't work properly. However, with either pair installed everything ran sweetly. Hours of memtest86+ diags found no problems at all.

Now I'm running all 4 sticks at DDR3-1333 speeds and everything works fine. So I'm curious to know if you find you can run all 4 slots at the rated speed of the modules.

Let us know how you get on.

 

[Smoblikat]

I would have voted against any Ballistix purchase.
Corsair or G.Skill 1.5v (or less)... Yes

Ballistix is amazing for overclocking. Most of them have micron D9's, so you can pump unlimited amounts of voltage through them, though since this is intel im sure we are limited to a ridiculously low amount of volts. but i ran a pair of 2gb DIMMS at 1600CL6 at 2.1v ..........ran it that way for months, no degredation. This was back on AM3 where you didnt have to worry about voltage through the IMC.

 

[Shagga]

I'd be very interested to know how you get along with this.

I've just built a system with a very similar spec (Gigabyte Z68 board and 4 x 4GB of Crucial Balistix DDR3-1600 RAM)

What I found was that with all 4 sticks installed, windows and apps just didn't work properly. However, with either pair installed everything ran sweetly. Hours of memtest86+ diags found no problems at all.

Now I'm running all 4 sticks at DDR3-1333 speeds and everything works fine. So I'm curious to know if you find you can run all 4 slots at the rated speed of the modules.

Let us know how you get on.

That's interesting and one to look out for. I'll see if I have any problems and keep this thread up to date. The 3770K comes tomorrow, so hopefully should start to buildthe system over the next few days. I really should buy an new GPU though! EVGA 570 or 580?