Is there any point to high speed DDR3 kits?

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PartEleven
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Is there any point to high speed DDR3 kits?

Post by PartEleven » Tue Mar 29, 2011 1:32 pm

Somewhere down the line I'm going to upgrade to Ivy Bridge (or whatever the 22nm Sandy Bridge update is called), but since DDR3 seems like it's at its all-time low in price right now, I've been buying good deals I come across. I see these deals for high speed "enthusiast" DDR3 ram all the time, but what is the point of these? Unless I'm wrong, the memory speed and cpu clock speed is completely uncoupled now right? If you were trying to overclock the CPU, you're no longer forced to overclock the ram at the same time anymore?

ces
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Re: Is there any point to high speed DDR3 kits?

Post by ces » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:01 pm


quest_for_silence
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Re: Is there any point to high speed DDR3 kits?

Post by quest_for_silence » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:06 pm

PartEleven wrote:I see these deals for high speed "enthusiast" DDR3 ram all the time, but what is the point of these?

There are also some benchmarks on Bit-tech.net about memory bandwidth and latency in the Sandy Bridge era, you might give them a look.

CA_Steve
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Re: Is there any point to high speed DDR3 kits?

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Mar 29, 2011 2:43 pm

Bit-Tech on the best memory for SNB

Will the sweet spot for Ivy Bridge be shifted higher? Who knows. :D

ces
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Re: Is there any point to high speed DDR3 kits?

Post by ces » Tue Mar 29, 2011 6:03 pm

CA_Steve wrote:Bit-Tech on the best memory for SNB

Will the sweet spot for Ivy Bridge be shifted higher? Who knows. :D
There is a discussion here that the sweet spot is drifting lower... or maybe staying stable and available speeds increase.

viewtopic.php?p=533209#p533209
viewtopic.php?p=533696#p533696

CA_Steve
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Re: Is there any point to high speed DDR3 kits?

Post by CA_Steve » Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:10 pm

Can you post those links a third time? I may not have seen them, yet ;)

ces
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Re: Is there any point to high speed DDR3 kits?

Post by ces » Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:17 pm

CA_Steve wrote:Can you post those links a third time? I may not have seen them, yet ;)
Oops :oops:

PartEleven
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Re: Is there any point to high speed DDR3 kits?

Post by PartEleven » Thu Mar 31, 2011 10:24 am

Thanks for the links guys. It looks like the story really hasn't changed much when it comes to performance gains coming directly from faster ram, if going by that bit-tech link. It still seems like a faster cpu clock goes much farther in speeding up your system. Before, faster ram let you get those higher cpu clocks but it just doesn't seem necessary now. Unless you REALLY want that small extra bump in performance.

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Re: Is there any point to high speed DDR3 kits?

Post by mkk » Thu Mar 31, 2011 11:28 am

Exactly, the factor is so small that it can be safely ignored. By faster RAM if you find that the price doesn't differ much at the time you're buying, but don't pay a lot more and expect to notice any difference in the end. Next up is AMD's Bulldozer line that will standardise at 1866MHz, but I'd be surprised if there will be more than a measurable loss to go with todays mass volume speed 1333 that upgraders may already be well stocked on.

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