What to do about my rubbish 2666Mhz DDR4

[Sweetloaf]

So for one reason or another, my system (i7 8700K, Gigabyte z390 UD, 16GB RAM, RTX2060) has what appears to be naff RAM, it's ADATA Premier 2666Mhz with timings along the lines of 19-19-19-43.

System is used mainly for gaming and audio production (Ableton/Cubase).

I therefore have a few options.

1) Buy a couple of Kingston 3333Mhz sticks (or something similar) with better timings for about £90, sell my current RAM, job done.

2) Mess around with the timings/speed of the RAM I do have, assuming it can do a fair bit more that it's currently doing, keeping in mind it's value RAM and doesn't have heat spreaders (which I could buy for a few quid).

3) Forget about it, it's just a bunch of numbers which I wouldn't care about if I hadn't looked into it and I'm happy with my PCs performance. 3333Mhz RAM with tighter timings wouldn't make much real world difference anyway.

I'm guessing there'd be a slight boost mainly in min FPS in certain games but my question is...what would YOU recommend I do?

Also can't see a specific XMP setting for memory in the BIOS, does my motherboard just auto apply XMP settings for RAM? Is RAM just a case of stick it in and press the on button or is a BIOS reset recommended?

Cheers.

 

[Finners]

Maybe take a stick out and Google the model number. They are some really slack timings so it may be just applying some default ones if there is no xmp profile loaded. Then you would know what the sticks are supposed to run at.

You've got the nail on the head really, improvements will be there if you get some higher speed/lower timings RAM but they will be in the single digits so is that worth £100 to you?

 

[Sweetloaf]

Maybe take a stick out and Google the model number. They are some really slack timings so it may be just applying some default ones if there is no xmp profile loaded. Then you would know what the sticks are supposed to run at.

You've got the nail on the head really, improvements will be there if you get some higher speed/lower timings RAM but they will be in the single digits so is that worth £100 to you?

I think there's an XMP profile loaded but can't actually see the option on my motherboard. Will google the part number at home later.

Upgrade would probably be around the £30 mark once I'd sold this RAM, value to me is still debatable

Edit - checked the manufacturers rating CL19 is the XMP profile speed...they are just a bit rubbish then. (Or have OC headroom )

 

[EssexBoy]

Difference will be so small is it worth it?

 

[Sweetloaf]

Difference will be so small is it worth it?

Hard to say really. I've seen similar upgrades where a >10FPS min increase has been achieved so to me that is potentially worth the £30. Not entirely sure what to expect in performance gains.

 

[eeii]

I was under the understanding that on intel cpu's memory speed makes very little difference and certainly not worth the money. On AMD's Ryzen systems its a different story.

 

[JasonM]

Re memory on Intel CPU's it depends on the application / software your running

The first thing to understand is Intel CPU's have large cache size, so your i7 8700k has 12MB level 3 cache.

So most memory reads will be cache hits, because of this memory speed typically has little effect on overall performance.

However some software such as WinRar that does solid compression and some computer games are accessing large amounts of memory, in this situation there is less cache hits and memory speed does matter.

So if your games / Cubas is accessing large amounts of different memory very quickly, then faster memory will make an improvement in overall speed.

 

[Sweetloaf]

So if your games / Cubas is accessing large amounts of different memory very quickly, then faster memory will make an improvement in overall speed.

Actually no idea how Cubase/Ableton work but I think Kontakt may respond well to faster RAM. Something to Google before I inevitably click buy

Cheers

 

[JasonM]

Actually no idea how Cubase/Ableton work but I think Kontakt may respond well to faster RAM. Something to Google before I inevitably click buy

Cheers

Yes you need to discover how your application responds to memory speed. As said it's software that is accessing lots of random memory very fast and as such the CPU cache hits are low. I actually run 32GB Kingston 2133 on my i7 8700 (non K), main use for computer is software development and most of my software is unaffected by memory speed (smaller intense calculations with high cache hits), so for me i'm happy on 2133.

 

[ricid]

Actually no idea how Cubase/Ableton work but I think Kontakt may respond well to faster RAM. Something to Google before I inevitably click buy

Cheers

The only way to know is to benchmark, but I'd assume with a sampler, which at a minimum is likely to resample & apply a filter, the latency from a memory read might not be the bottleneck (then again, it might be, CPUs are astonishingly quick at vectorised math)
Doesn't Kontakt stream samples from disk anyway? The latencies there even with a fast SSD are going to be much greater than system memory.

 

[keenan]

What is the exact model number of your memory?

Some of the "value" memory modules run really low voltage (1.2v) even with xmp enabled.

The easiest way to check if there's any further performance left in those sticks is to do the following..

In the bios, make sure your DRAM voltage is running at 1.35v and while leaving your timings where they are, raise your memory frequency to 3000Mhz.

Reboot and see if it worked..

 

[Sweetloaf]

Doesn't Kontakt stream samples from disk anyway? The latencies there even with a fast SSD are going to be much greater than system memory.

I'm not 100% sure but I think in certain circumstances it holds them in memory as it has a purge button that clears recently loaded samples that then need to be re-loaded if you re-select them. That said I've never had a problem with how Kontakt performs, just once you see the numbers and know your RAM could be better, you want it to be better

The easiest way to check if there's any further performance left in those sticks is to do the following..

In the bios, make sure your DRAM voltage is running at 1.35v and while leaving your timings where they are, raise your memory frequency to 3000Mhz.

Reboot and see if it worked..

Plan to do this at some point if I don't just buy some new stuff (can't believe I've held off this long) current RAM has no heat spreaders so don't want to mess with it too much. My current stuff doesn't have a selectable XMP profile option in the BIOS, the manual seems to suggest that this option will just appear if the RAM supports XMP.

 

[keenan]

Plan to do this at some point if I don't just buy some new stuff (can't believe I've held off this long) current RAM has no heat spreaders so don't want to mess with it too much. My current stuff doesn't have a selectable XMP profile option in the BIOS, the manual seems to suggest that this option will just appear if the RAM supports XMP.

Don't worry too much about heatspreaders. DDR4 runs pretty cool and 1.35v is standard operating voltages for DDR4.

Can you run taiphoon burner to see which IC's they are using?

 

[Sweetloaf]

Can you run taiphoon burner to see which IC's they are using?

I'm sure I can but will have to google whatever the hell it is you just said

Ok, will have a check when I get back from work, guessing the freeware version is ok to use for this?

 

[keenan]

I'm sure I can but will have to google whatever the hell it is you just said

Ok, will have a check when I get back from work, guessing the freeware version is ok to use for this?

It is yes. It'll tell you what memory chips are on the memory stick and then you can use Ryzen Dram Calculator to get a good combination of frequency/timings/voltage to use.

 

[Sweetloaf]

then you can use Ryzen Dram Calculator to get a good combination of frequency/timings/voltage to use.

I've an i7 8700k

 

[keenan]

I've an i7 8700k

Ah yes, my bad..

 

[Sweetloaf]

In case that means anything to anyone. (obviously that's just one of two but they both give the same info, different serial numbers.)

 

[MaXxBoulton]

Over clock the ram you have. what would i do.. just move on with you life and play games

i7 8700k
RTX 2060

what res do you play at and what FPS are you wanting to achieve.
unless you go to say 4000mhz and or drop to CL14 i cant see there been a big step in performance just from ram upgrade. the RTX2060 is not a monster of performance

 

[Armageus]

Some useful info here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking/wiki/ram/ddr4

Spectek is a brand of Micron (as mentioned in that link), but likely won't overclock past 3000mhz