RAM suggestion

[rambaldi]

Hmm this seems to be the most appropriate place for now

So for about the same price I can either get:
Corsair XMS3 Vengeance DDR3 PC12800/1600MHz CL8 2x4GB (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8)

Which I would run with my current:
4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz CL7 DIMM

And the other purchase option would be 4 of:
Kingston HyperX DDR3 PC12800/1600MHz CL9 4GB (KHX1600C9D3/4G)

Would end up with with 12G vs 16G but timings would be slightly better although not at the right frequencies etc. so my estimation would be I would end up having to run them at 1333 MHz CL8 (for option 1) vs 1600 MHz CL9.

Would I notice a significant difference in performance one way or the other? Currently my usage model is BF3 + net, mainly getting the upgrade for BF3 loading time and "future use".

[Bitey]

I got some of the cl8 corsair vengance stuff, only ran at 1466 on my 955BE.
But I have it running at 1800+(cl9 default SPD timings) on the same board with a 1100T.
I have not tried to tighten any of the timings yet... no need 1100T at 3.6 turboing to 4.1 or so is pretty nice as is. But i will try once I have found a nice stable max OC( i still have headroom to spare)

I used to have 2 sticks of the kingston cl8 stuff runinng at cl7 at 1466, I probably should have left both in the board for 12G instead of just 8...but I have not run out of memory while gaming or compiling.
(I have swap space disabled with 8G of the ddr3)

[Spartak]

may be you find this thread useful
I would made additional suggestion: save you money and get straight away a 1333MHz 8GB kit.
Those 1600 ratings are mostly XMP ratings, and will work only with corresponding Intel CPUs anyway.
As a side note, I have no problem to run full XMP setting on all 4 RAM slots

[rambaldi]

I would save the money if possible but from what I could find there wasn't much in the way of 8G 1333 MHz kits (or 2 4G) around. Thus the two options posted above. If as you suggest the CL8 stuff won't actually offer me anything I think I will save the $20 and go for the 4 lots of 4G.

[Spartak]

Originally Posted by rambaldi

I would save the money if possible but from what I could find there wasn't much in the way of 8G 1333 MHz kits (or 2 4G) around. Thus the two options posted above. If as you suggest the CL8 stuff won't actually offer me anything I think I will save the $20 and go for the 4 lots of 4G.

yes latences have generally very small impact on performance. but as always depends on task
additionally running RAM asymmetrically is bad idea anyway. you will have to downclock the new RAM to the level of your current RAM, to make it work

I got some of the cl8 corsair vengance stuff, only ran at 1466 on my 955BE.

[system7]

Puts on usual hat...

Exotic memory is a complete waste of money for regular computers.

Some evidence Llano APU's benefit from the fast stuff because they are using the bandwidth for graphics. But 2X 4GB of DDR3-1600 1.5V is probably the sweet spot right now and a good future investment. G.Skill Ripjaw is fantastically reliable stuff too.

Memory works best clocked in a tidy ratio to the CPU. 2 sticks always works faster than 4.

[Rottis]

I'm avoiding HyperX branded stuff. Loads of stability and problems with those, beside that they don't automatically get their stated settings.

I currently have XMS 4*2G 1600 CL9 set on my main pc. It was cheap for 8gigs and has worked well at default settings.

[rambaldi]

Originally Posted by Rottis

I'm avoiding HyperX branded stuff. Loads of stability and problems with those, beside that they don't automatically get their stated settings.

I currently have XMS 4*2G 1600 CL9 set on my main pc. It was cheap for 8gigs and has worked well at default settings.

I did notice the lack of auto settings but it was easy to fix. I haven't had stability issues with the 4x4 set up but I think I did with 2x2 beforehand. That though I am putting down to not setting the voltage correctly.

[Rottis]

Originally Posted by rambaldi

I did notice the lack of auto settings but it was easy to fix. I haven't had stability issues with the 4x4 set up but I think I did with 2x2 beforehand. That though I am putting down to not setting the voltage correctly.

Default settings not being optimal is indeed not a big deal if you are going to touch the settings anyway.
I have had several pairs of HyperX break down on me. Have been buying them mostly because cheap and instant availability.

At my last work place they where building work PC:s themself and used HyperX.
There it become pretty apparent that quality wasn't up to snuff, problems kept piling up. That goes with my much smaller sample experience of 4 from ~10 HyperX sets causing some sort of trouble. All of this experience is trying to use memory on default settings without any tricks. Of course those sets vary from DDR2 to DDR3 over 10 or so years. Quality of DDR2 was pretty good at the time and DDR3 has caused more trouble.