Optimal memory given CPU's voltage requirement?

[jokul]

PCPartPicker is telling me that the 4960 won't play well with the Dominator Platinum memory i've selected since the 4960 prefers an operating max range of 1.575V and the Dominator Plats are going to require 1.65V to work optimally. I'm trying to get the most bang for my buck, but I don't really have much of an idea of how much downgrading from DDR3-2133 (or the CAS latency) will affect the system when compared to running the dominators at a reduced voltage.


Build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3DQzg

 

[Ken g6]

What are you using the system for? Most things don't care about RAM speed much, especially when in a quad-channel configuration like this. But a few do.

If you must have DDR3-2133, CL9, you could get four of these kits. (For $960. ) Then again, LGA2011 in general is not bang-for-buck material.

 

[MongGrel]

I'd get something off here and call RAM done with myself personally.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...PC3%2014900%29

You need 64 for ?????

 

[jokul]

I like to jump between games, browsers, development, open remote connections simultaneously, which is why I went for 64. If the latency won't be an issue, should I downgrade to the vengeance pros at 1866?

 

[Ken g6]

Yeah...this is not a bang-for-buck build. This is a "one of the most extreme gaming builds I've ever seen!" build.

And that's fine. But now that we've established that, could you please answer [thread=80121]these questions[/thread] so we can improve your build further?

If you really are going for a "one of the most extreme gaming builds I've ever seen!" build, while trying for bang-for-buck as well, this build looks a little better:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3DUeh

...Assuming you have at least 3 1080p monitors, or one 4K monitor, and that you intend to stick with Nvidia. This software could be worthwhile as well in such a case.

 

[lehtv]

Looks nice Ken, but I absolutely recommend against running tri-SLI with those triple fan coolers. Nothing but problems will ensue from that. I think the 780 Ti SLI plan is better, but if you were to get tri-SLI, then you'd want cards with blower style coolers, e.g. EVGA 780 SC.

 

[jokul]

Yeah...this is not a bang-for-buck build. This is a "one of the most extreme gaming builds I've ever seen!" build.

And that's fine. But now that we've established that, could you please answer [thread=80121]these questions[/thread] so we can improve your build further?

If you really are going for a "one of the most extreme gaming builds I've ever seen!" build, while trying for bang-for-buck as well, this build looks a little better:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3DUeh

...Assuming you have at least 3 1080p monitors, or one 4K monitor, and that you intend to stick with Nvidia. This software could be worthwhile as well in such a case.

Sorry when I meant "bang for buck" I meant within the performance realm I was in. There were several options that fit the 4960's operating range but I was looking for whatever would give me the fewest SSD hits per dollar at the 64 range.

What this machine is for:

1. I'm a developer first, and the RAM is necessary for being able to perform while having multiple browsers running while simultaneously running web services and performance benchmarks. I like having a bunch of VS tabs and remote connections open simultaneously. 64 may still seem like a lot for such use but I'd like to keep these things open when popping into a game every once in a while.

2. I'd like to keep it to no more than $5,100. I don't mind dropping down less than that, but I want the processor and RAM to be top notch; subsequently, the motherboard must also be capable of serving these behemoths. Costs can be cut on the GPUs, I've already seriously considered dropping down to 1 because 2 was more of a pipe dream initially.

3. I don't intend to buy parts outside the US unless that's the only option or I can get the same performance for a cheaper price.

4. n/a

5. I have no brand loyalty at all. I'd sell weapons to both AMD and Intel if it benefited me in some way.

6. I intend to use my 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black hard-disk. it will be attached as a slave drive after setting up the OS on a SSD. Nothing else is salvageable at the moment besides my asus monitor.

7. Admittedly, I'm not huge on over-clocking.

8. The monitor I'm on only supports 1080p and at the moment, I don't intend to upgrade to 4k yet. I am going to go for a 3x 1080p setup though.

9. I don't really mind. I'm willing to wait for a few months if the game is going to change in that timeframe.

 

[mfenn]

I'm thinking that 64GB of RAM is overkill for the tasks you describe unless you're running full production instances of heavy database servers on your development box. I don't even know how you could get Visual Studio to go that high, you'd have to have hundreds of code files open at once while compiling and doing static analysis on all of them. Remote desktop sessions use basically no memory.

The CPU also seems to be a bit overkill unless you are running production workloads for testing, are doing full rebuilds of thousands of C++ source files, or are doing microarchitecture simulations or something.

Even if all that holds true, then your build is still bad bang for the buck. Take Ken's build, drop a GTX 780, and you'll have a machine that performs within a 10% of yours for $1000 less.

 

[Ken g6]

I'm a developer first, and the RAM is necessary for being able to perform while having multiple browsers running while simultaneously running web services and performance benchmarks. I like having a bunch of VS tabs and remote connections open simultaneously. 64 may still seem like a lot for such use but I'd like to keep these things open when popping into a game every once in a while.

What kind of performance benchmarks are you running? If you're just doing client-side benchmarks for each major browser in VMs, then what, you need 2GB each for Linux VMs with Firefox and Chrome, 4GB for Windows with IE, and maybe an OS-X VM? Doesn't seem like it should need more than 32GB.

If you're doing server performance benchmarks with some kind of load testing system that launches multiple browsers, that's more interesting. In that case, could you use moar coars *cough* I mean more cores?

 

[jokul]

Thanks for all the suggestions! I will take your recommendations and go for the rig Ken was talking about. I'm quite new the whole thing and (as you can probably tell) not a great judge of what is necessary for various setups to run optimally.

@Ken: I probably wouldn't be launching multiple browsers but rather testing for inefficiencies with exposed web app endpoints through console spammers. LOIC sort of stuff I guess. I can get somewhat carried away with wanting "one of the most extreme gaming builds I've ever seen!", so thanks again for saving me some serious dough.