Sorry for the lame question. If I built a system with a socket 1156 motherboard that claims it can support memory of speeds DDR3 2200+/1800/1600/1333/1066/800 and select an Intel Core i3-540 or Intel Core i7-870 which Intel says can use 1066 or 1333 speed memory. Price difference aside, should I be opting for the 1333MHz memory for improved performance? Even more, is there any benefit to getting anything faster such as the 2200MHz memory that the motherboard claims it supports if I'll never be overclocking the system?
Question on Core i3/i5/i7 memory speeds
- Thread starter Handruin
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BingBangBop
Storage is cool
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- Nov 15, 2009
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My opinion: Unless you are doing something very unusual, the difference between minimal ram and top performing ram is in the 5%-10% range on overall computer performance. It is not worth the price unless your OC requires it or you are doing high performance processing that is RAM-limited. That being said, I will pay more for lifetime warranted, brand name ram.
In the case of a Core i3/i5/i7 that have two speeds listed (1066 and 1333) are those the only two supported speeds? My point being, even if I stick in DDR3 2200 RAM, the most it will run at is 1333MHz, correct? That is, unless if I overclock it through the motherboard which I have no plans of doing.
I am looking to get 2 of these Crucial 2GB DDR3-1066 memory because the price seems really good at $35 for the 2GB size and CAS 7 latency and limited lifetime warranty. However, I was wondering if it would be worth stepping up to a Crucial 2GB DDR3-1333MHz memory of the same size for the same money ($35), but the CAS is 9 instead of 7?
I am looking to get 2 of these Crucial 2GB DDR3-1066 memory because the price seems really good at $35 for the 2GB size and CAS 7 latency and limited lifetime warranty. However, I was wondering if it would be worth stepping up to a Crucial 2GB DDR3-1333MHz memory of the same size for the same money ($35), but the CAS is 9 instead of 7?
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
I try to match the memory speed with the CPU bus speed. No sense in creating a bottleneck with slower RAM, or spending more on faster RAM if you are not going to overclock.
The CAS will depend on the speed, with lower latencies at lower speeds. For example my DDR3 1600 looks like this.
time
Storage? I am Storage!
Thanks time, I must have missed that post. That's exactly the info I was looking for. Sounds like 1333MHz is the way I will go.
Beyond the 1333 there is a quazi standard XMS speeds but the motherboard and memory need to support it. My memory is XMS 1600, basically all that does is support a way for the BIOS to automatically configure all the memory settings for the faster memory, and up to 1600 you really aren't paying any more for the stuff last I looked which was a while ago.
I ended up getting 1333MHz for both my configs. The price was the same and I did 2x 2GB sticks. i ended up with a pair of Crucial and a pair of Corsair because they were out of stock on the Crucial when I got to the store. Since I had preordered it using their website, they reduce the price on the Corsairs from $43 to the same as the Crucial which was $35. So far they all seem to work fine. I'm running prime95 for a couple days to stress them out.