Is DDR3-2133Mhz Worth The Extra $4?

[NewYorksFinest]

8GB of DDR3-1600Mhz RAM costs $65. DDR3-2133Mhz costs $69. I posted the DDR3-2133Mhz RAM and people went crazy. Is DDR3-2133 worth the extra $4?

 

[tweakboy]

Its better of you go 8GB x 2 for 16GB ... Yes its worth it man, go for it. gl

 

[G73S]

Offcourse it is!!! $4 USD for god's sake! If it was like $50 USD I`d say no because in daily life usage, you will not notice a difference only in benchmarks.

Like I upgraded from 24 GB 1600 MHz. RAM to Kingston HyperX 32GB 1866 MHz. RAM and I don't notice a bit of a difference.

Again....it's $4 USD d00d! that's a no brainer!

 

[NewYorksFinest]

Offcourse it is!!! $4 USD for god's sake! If it was like $50 USD I`d say no because in daily life usage, you will not notice a difference only in benchmarks.

Like I upgraded from 24 GB 1600 MHz. RAM to Kingston HyperX 32GB 1866 MHz. RAM and I don't notice a bit of a difference.

Again....it's $4 USD d00d! that's a no brainer!

Same, I posted the deal in the General Hardware midrange builders and people went crazy over not using DDR3-1600. Wait for the future like how DDR3-1333Mhz was out, heck, they will still buy DDR3-1600 when DDR4 comes out .

 

[ShintaiDK]

Is the 2133 1.5V or 1.65V?

 

[Essence_of_War]

It depends on the rest of the specs. RAM speed isn't the be-all-end-all of RAM specs, you need to consider CAS latencies and voltage also. All other things being equal (CL, voltage) I'd drop +$4 to pick up the faster RAM just for the epeen.

But if you're talking about these:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36411478&postcount=892

I've already explained that 1.65V is out of spec, and while you can certainly use them if you'd like, I think it's sort of silly to pay extra for memory that is not guaranteed to be stable at in-spec voltages.

 

[evident]

lets see, starbucks frappucino for one day or faster memory for as long as you have the system? duh!

 

[Atreidin]

I personally don't use DDR3 that is sold to run at over 1.5v. Maybe it runs stable at 1866 at 1.5v, which would be better than 1600, but maybe not.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

The voltage (1.60/1.65 versus 1.50V) is one thing. The benefit from faster RAM is another. Those benefits are marginal.

But one could easily pick high-speed RAM -- even with the higher voltage spec -- with the very intention of running them at a lower speed with tighter latencies. It's just not a common element of mainstream computer-building logic. For a $4 difference, though, it almost seems to make sense.

 

[ctk1981]

Always go for fastest speed, tightest timings at 1.5V for the lowest price. Anything else is a crap shoot if you get it to work or not.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Always go for fastest speed, tightest timings at 1.5V for the lowest price. Anything else is a crap shoot if you get it to work or not.

. . . And I'll give that a +1 -- also.

I'd say that any of these chipsets -- Z68, Z77 or Z87 -- the VCCIO voltage must lag behind the VDIMM voltage by no more than 0.50V. VCCIO over 1.2V is considered too high, at least for my Z68 board, and wouldn't be different from the later models -- especially Z77. Intel had also given a spec limit of 1.57V for RAM as it applies to the CPU warranty.

So a RAM spec of 1.50V gives you a very comfortable range of options for the VCCIO voltage. And you should be able to reduce both the timings and voltage of (say) DDR3-2133's at a lower speed, like 1866.