Help me select RAM

[WhipperSnapper]

I'm thinking about upgrading my rig's 4 x 2 GB generic RAM to 16 GB since the $15 Chase Freedom Visa checkout is available and the prices seem to have dropped a little bit. I was going to upgrade to 2 x 8 GB (and maybe keep two of those 2 GB sticks in for 20 GB total, but that would mean a lower RAM speed).

Here are the candidates:

Mushkin Stealth, $64 - Edit: now sold out

Team Vulcan, $65

Mushkin Blackline, $69

G-Skill Ripjaw X-Series, $70

Which is least likely to give me problems? 20% of the Muskin Stealth reviewers weren't happy, but it's cheapest.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

A $6 spread is insignificant. Go with whichever you're happy with.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Yeah, that's true. Biggest issue for me is reliability and that it works at the settings its advertised for out of the package. The Mushkin Blackline seems interesting.

 

[tweakboy]

Go with G.SKILL they are solid ram sticks and what not and have lifetime warranty of your dimms. couple dollars more biite as well ..........

 

[WhipperSnapper]

What's more important, the CAS Latency or the DDR Clockspeed?

 

[MDE]

Capacity > Speed > Latency

I'd go with the cheapest, fastest your motherboard will support. Higher speeds mean a lot less if you aren't using integrated graphics.

 

[Shmee]

What motherboard/CPU?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

What motherboard/CPU?

ASUS P8Z68-VLX

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Today's Shell Shocker deal is...$70 possibly -11% for:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233778&

Corsair Vengeance rated to DDR3 2400 at 11-13-13-31 with voltage 1.65.

Is that voltage even safe for my mobo?

I don't particularly need or want to run it at 2400. I'm wondering about the feasibility of lowering the clock speeds, especially lowering the voltage down to 1.5 or 1.55, and maybe tightening up the latency numbers.

What might it look like at 1866 or 2133? Would something like 9-9-9-24 at 1.5 V and 1866 be feasible? How about 8-8-8-24 at 1.5 V and 1600?

Should I worry about the possibility that with XMP on or default settings that if I install and reboot, it will try to set to 2400 1.65 V and potentially damage the Sandy Bridge?

It seems like a great deal, but maybe more than I was hoping for. I'd love to get, say, CL9 at 1866 or CL10 at 2133 with say 1.5 or 1.55V.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Meh, the performance gains from having faster clocked memory are vastly overstated unless you're running a set of very specific applications that constantly shuffle things in and out of memory. Otherwise you won't notice the difference. I also wouldn't buy 1.65V ram, more than likely it's just 1.5V ram with modified profiles to run faster at higher voltage.

I just recently upgraded RAM on my server because I wanted more RAM for virtual machines. I went with this RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226692

1.35V, and CAS9, supposedly assembled in the US if that makes a difference, no fancy heatspreaders that might cause clearance issues. Newegg raised the price since I bought it, but it's still fairly affordable.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Corsair:

http://slickdeals.net/f/8234588-16-...-free-shipping-newegg-com-starting-at-6-pm-pt

Comes to $47.30 shipped after the November 11 11% off Visa Checkout deal and the $15 Chase Freedom Visa Checkout statement credit deal.

I'm operating under the assumption that the chips are simply rated to the advertised specs if someone really wanted to overclock them that far and that I can lower the voltage and downclock it all. I'm hoping that they are simply very high quality and would have good specs at lower settings. (I'm also assuming that at 1866 1.5V it would have better latencies than this KLEVV RAM.) I assume it would work at voltage 1.5 V 1600 9-9-9, and hopefully better than that (like 1.5V 1866 9-9-9 or better yet 8-8-8).

Wait a second, who are these KLEVV guys?