What to do about my rubbish 2666Mhz DDR4

Sweetloaf · 5 May 2019 at 09:44

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.

Sweetloaf · 5 May 2019 at 10:42

Finners said:
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

)

Sweetloaf · 5 May 2019 at 11:51

EssexBoy said:
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.

Sweetloaf · 6 May 2019 at 07:42

JasonM said:
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

Sweetloaf · 19 May 2019 at 09:17

ricid said:
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

keenan said:
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.

Sweetloaf · 19 May 2019 at 10:20

keenan said:
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?

Sweetloaf · 19 May 2019 at 13:44

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

I've an i7 8700k

Sweetloaf · 19 May 2019 at 21:36

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

Sweetloaf · 27 May 2019 at 10:50

I've ordered a 16Gb kit of the Kingston 3333Mhz. The only way to stop myself going over the pros and cons is to just buy the damn stuff and forget about it

Sweetloaf · 28 May 2019 at 15:45

Bought it, stuck it in..bugger all difference

Looks nicer in my non windowed case though.

Strangely, still glad it's there!

Sweetloaf · 29 May 2019 at 15:48

JasonM said:
See my post no 7, it's due to caching on the i7, plus combined with slower timings on the faster memory.

As mentioned some software does benefit from faster memory, but majority of time faster memory is not worth it.

Actually faster RAM and tighter timings but your point still stands. I'm actually getting slightly better scores in older benchmarks and Kontakt does seem to switch between samples faster but that could be Placebo effect

Sweetloaf · 30 May 2019 at 08:44

JasonM said:
I think you understand where i'm coming from anyway .

Yep

I'm also just happy that the upgrade went smoothly. I never expected a huge boost just happier knowing my RAM isn't a "weakest link".