Is it time to upgrade RAM?

[Freddie589]

Atm I have 4GB of corsair XMS3 running at 1800mhz, now seeing as OCUK are now selling these sticks at £35 O) is this ram doing my pc any favors or is it worth upgrading to some dominator RAM? How much of a Performance increae will I see in games? Rig in sig CPU oc'ed to 3.8

Thanks
Freddie589

 

[pingu666]

not much probably, u could go for another 2 or 4 for 8gig

 

[liamgo]

i hope not as iv just ordered some 1600mhz xms3 myself. ddr3 1333mhz and above is the best you can get atm, 4gb is enough for most users.

from what i can gather ram goes down and up constantly in price by quite a big margin, its like ddr2 started off at £x went down to £y then ddr3 came out so it went back up to £x and will probably see the same happen to ddr3. could always add another another 2 lots of 2gb ram of the same specs to add a bit of future proofing?

i wouldnt like to decide on adding another 4gb of ram in a year or two probably when ddr4 is out and find out i have to pay twice as much as i did 2 years back for the same thing.

 

[cmndr_andi]

TBH, for gaming you will not see much performance difference in games.

If you do want to upgrade the RAM then I would suggest buying a high density 2x4GB kit like this and then sell your current 4GB kit on the MM. This will give you the memory increase and not put much more strain on the memory controller on the CPU. If you just throw in 2 more sticks (for a total of 4) you will put much more strain on the memory controller and you will have to re-do your overclock.

 

[liamgo]

TBH, for gaming you will not see much performance difference in games.

If you do want to upgrade the RAM then I would suggest buying a high density 2x4GB kit like this and then sell your current 4GB kit on the MM. This will give you the memory increase and not put much more strain on the memory controller on the CPU. If you just throw in 2 more sticks (for a total of 4) you will put much more strain on the memory controller and you will have to re-do your overclock.

what do you mean by strain on the memory controller? would it only do this on an overclocked system? or is it generally a bad thing to fill all ram slots?

i might do as you suggested in future, instead of adding another 2 sticks whenever swap what ive got for a 2x4 kit.

 

[cmndr_andi]

It is generally a bad thing to fill all the RAM slots. These systems are only rated to use 1333MHz RAM across all 4 slots - so running them at a speed faster than this is very much overclocking and puts extra strain on the CPU. If you run two modules (even if they are running at higher than 1333MHz then the impact this has on the CPU is much less).

 

[liamgo]

i get ya, shouldnt new cpu`s be able to take the extra strain though? my understanding is all the new tech will only run at 1333mhz unless overclocked? yet theres 2000mhz ram on the market?

with the 1600mhz xms3 stuff iv bought itl run at 1333mhz out of the box yes? then if i decide to overclock the cpu i have to overclock the ram too? but then if i decide to add more of the same ram to double up i have to then reclock the ram to suit? is any of this dependant on the board?

complicated stuff but very good to know.

 

[cmndr_andi]

i get ya, shouldnt new cpu`s be able to take the extra strain though?

Well they are rated to 1333MHz, just like the old s1156 CPUs - however I hear they can run RAM at even higher speeds that before, but that is very much in the overclocking realm (you would need to increase CPU voltages like QPI to hit these higher speeds).

my understanding is all the new tech will only run at 1333mhz unless overclocked? yet theres 2000mhz ram on the market?

This is where the terminology gets complicated - you can overclock 3 main things with these modern systems. The CPU, the memory and the memory controller (which is on the CPU).

The way CPU overclocking works with these sandy bridge chips is with increasing the unlocked CPU multiplier. This means you don't change the bus speed (stays at or close to 100MHz) and the memory can stay at stock 1333MHz speed even when you are running 4GHz+ on the CPU.

When you overclock the RAM you are running it at a higher than rated speed (eg. buying a 1600MHz kit and running it at 1800MHz). I would not suggest doing this tbh - I would suggest buying the RAM of the speed you want and keep it at this speed. From what I've seen - the performance benefits of overclocking modern DDR3 (especially when it doesn't limit overclocking) are not very big.

Finally, for overclocking the memory controller - this is running memory at a speed higher than the CPU's rated speed (with the SB chips this is 1333MHz). If you buy a 1600MHz kit and run it at this speed then you will not be overclocking the memory - but you will be overclocking the memory controller.

If you want to run ram at 2000MHz then you need to get lucky with the CPU memory controller and get one that handle these speeds. This is all luck of the draw.

with the 1600mhz xms3 stuff iv bought itl run at 1333mhz out of the box yes?

It will most likely run at 1066MHz 1.5V (determined by the motherboard). You will need to set the frequency, voltage and timings manually or activate the XMP memory profile in the BIOS.

then if i decide to overclock the cpu i have to overclock the ram too?

No - you should be able to keep the RAM at 1600MHz and clock the CPU to the sky.

but then if i decide to add more of the same ram to double up i have to then reclock the ram to suit?

You would probably have to redo your overclock. Specifically increasing your QPI voltage and possibly reducing your RAM frequency.

is any of this dependant on the board?

Not really - just get a board with a BIOS you are happy to work with.

 

[liamgo]

excellent! very muchly appreciated reply.

will definitely look into this in greater detail in the near future.