Best bang for buck memory capacity & speed for Z490 / i7 10900K

hughythomas · 22 Jun 2020 at 00:25

Hi guys

What is the current sweet spot for speed/capacity to feed a Gigabyte Z490 Vision G with i7 10900K?

Its used mainly as a music work machine in a professional recording studio and my current ram is this:

Corsair Hyper X 3200Mhz 16GB (2x8GB)

I think I'd like 32GB and want to try and increase performance without breaking the bank!

Thank you in advance!

MrRockliffe · 22 Jun 2020 at 00:43

3200 CL14 or 3600 CL16 would be decent

hughythomas · 22 Jun 2020 at 09:33

Oh OK I already have 3200Mhz is there not much point going any higher these days? I'm a bit out of the loop when it comes to memory truth be told!

Tetras · 22 Jun 2020 at 15:52

This is the most recent I could find, someone else might come up with something better:

https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/reviews/best-ram-speed,5951-4.html

It looks like it can make a massive difference, but it's totally dependent on the software and the task, cos some tasks it made no difference at all. The only audio task they ran, it made zero difference.

I'd try and find something more directly relevant if you can, maybe ask on the developer forum, cos it could be well worth it. Then on the other hand, it might be a waste of money.

JollyJamma · 23 Jun 2020 at 11:41

hughythomas said:
Oh OK I already have 3200Mhz is there not much point going any higher these days? I'm a bit out of the loop when it comes to memory truth be told!

If you have 3200CL14 DIMMs, I'd suggest that the next logical upgrade would be Patriot Viper Steel 4400
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/patr...dual-channel-kit-pvs416g440c9k-my-103-pa.html

There's a small increase going from 3200CL14 to 3600CL16 and an Intel 10900K can make use of faster than 4000mhz DIMMS.

Robert896r1 · 24 Jun 2020 at 13:04

Oc'ing your ram and tuning your timings will net a much better gain than just buying a faster xmp kit as the secondary and tertiary timings are very loose and get looser as the frequency for xmp goes up.

C64 · 26 Jun 2020 at 20:56

2 options i'd say you either bite the bullet and pay £130 ish for guaranteed b-die 16gb kit which will be the best clocking ram at lowest latencys

or get the cheapest 3200 or 3600 kit you like just be careful and go the manus website to double check the timings you'll often see things like ddr4 3200 cL14 etc but in the smallprint it's CL18 @ 3200 and CL14 at base 2100 mhz

I just went one of the cheap 3600 kits CL17 which is hynix but it's doing CL16 @ 3600 so far so good

way I see it by the time well over 3600 mhz is standard we'll all be on other stuff anyway

seems the sweet spot will remain 3200-4000 for a long while yet

yes its nice to have b-die but did i just pay £40-£50 more for 1-3 fps more you have to ask yourself

I was also reading that you only really get the max benefits if you're using a high end gpu anyway

hughythomas · 2 Jul 2020 at 13:11

Thanks for the replies guys I just installed a new set of 32GB Viper Steel Series 4400mhz.

Whilst it took a while to get it to actually boot on my mobo (Z490 Vision G), once I set it to 4000Mhz and relaxed the timings it made a huge difference to audio production.

Really pleased.

Jacky60 · 2 Jul 2020 at 17:19

Patriot Steel series Viper was head and shoulders best value 6 months ago, aha I see that's what you bought!