6x2GB DDR3 1600MHz or 6x4GB DDR3 1333MHz

[Sihastru]

Hello guys. I guess you won't see this question asked very often. What would you buy, 12GB DDR3 1600MHz 7-8-7-20 1.65V with heat spreaders or 24GB DDR3 1333MHz 9-9-9-25 1.5V without heat spreaders? I know that 12GB is enough for now, but I expect that by the end of next year, 12GB would be the norm for top Intel platforms.

I often use multiple VMs (2 or 3), for certain programming projects, also a heavy Photoshop (ab)user, I have multiple IDE's open all the time, a couple of database servers also an apache server with multiple modules installed and other stuff that can eat up RAM really fast.

The kits in question are made by Kingston, the only other manufacturer I trust is Mushkin. Corsair has fallen from my graces due to multiple defective DDR2 kits I had in the past.

I use an overclocked i7 930 CPU (3.5 - 4.2 depending on my needs) and a Gigabyte X58A-UD7.

As for the price of the kits, the 24GB kit is just 30% more expensive then the 12GB kit. Both kits are 6 modules, also I will not be able to buy 3x4GB now and 3x4 "later" since DDR3 kits become EOL very quickly and I do not want to run mismatched modules (I know it should work)...

[Yukikaze]

Originally Posted by Sihastru

Hello guys. I guess you won't see this question asked very often. What would you buy, 12GB DDR3 1600MHz 7-8-7-20 1.65V with heat spreaders or 24GB DDR3 1333MHz 9-9-9-25 1.5V without heat spreaders? I know that 12GB is enough for now, but I expect that by the end of next year, 12GB would be the norm for top Intel platforms.

I often use multiple VMs (2 or 3), for certain programming projects, also a heavy Photoshop (ab)user, I have multiple IDE's open all the time, a couple of database servers also an apache server with multiple modules installed and other stuff that can eat up RAM really fast.

The kits in question are made by Kingston, the only other manufacturer I trust is Mushkin. Corsair has fallen from my graces due to multiple defective DDR2 kits I had in the past.

I use an overclocked i7 930 CPU (3.5 - 4.2 depending on my needs) and a Gigabyte X58A-UD7.

As for the price of the kits, the 24GB kit is just 30% more expensive then the 12GB kit. Both kits are 6 modules, also I will not be able to buy 3x4GB now and 3x4 "later" since DDR3 kits become EOL very quickly and I do not want to run mismatched modules (I know it should work)...

If you really expect to use up 12GB+ of RAM then get the 24GB kit since the price difference is tiny for twice the memory. The performance difference between the kits isn't anything to get overly excited about anyway and if you really do enough work to use up a ton of RAM having more of it is better. The only issue I see is that the faster RAM might be better for overclocking your CPU - but the 1333 kit will OC as well.

Though I do have to wonder why you need this much RAM. I have a 12GB kit and I do all sorts of memory eating things on my system and my 12GB aren't even close to getting eaten up. I have a friend who actually worked as a graphics designer, and he still dabbles in Photoshop and 8 gigs of RAM with his 1055T is more than sufficient for him (including for some gargantuan images).

[Tatty_One]

12GB will exceed memory requirements for a few years yet, buy 24GB and think that possibly 12 - 16GB will never get touched, surely thats the same as emptying your wallet into the toilet and flushing? If you really are or beleive your using more than 12GB regularily and you mention server apps, perhaps you should be moving to a multi CPU system and slotting in that extra ram, that way you would be getting the most productivity for your needs.

[n-ster]

- RAM will not affect your i7 Overclocking...

- RAM is not like hard drives, matching sticks WILL NOT BE BETTER than mismatched sticks

- With your extra RAM, you can RAMdisk

- Value is better with the 24GB kit

And Tatty, there area actually ways to use all the RAM VM wares, photoshop, video editing and RAMdisks are only a few examples

EDIT: good call on the multi CPU, though he would have to invest alot that he might not have too for his needs. If you do go dual CPU, 2x E5620s are real nice b/$ wise

[Sihastru]

Just to clarify, 12GB is a must. I now have 6GB and my pagefile has already increased in size. I can of course tweak the software I use so that I can live with 12GB, from what resources I see to be using at the moment. One thing I could start doing is close/reopen applications.

The DB servers would be the ones eating up about 4-8GB or RAM, they like to cache things, and speed is greatly improved if I configure them to use more. Sometimes I need to do very large data imports from other applications and very often I need to fix any errors that can occur during these large imports and also any errors that can occur post import. I don't work with live DB's, but I do need to load up the entire dumps. The VM's are required for testing, you need an "unclean" development machine (the actual host) and more then a couple of clean VM's to simulate real clients' situations with different OS'es. A few times I needed to start up a few cloned VM's in order to at least try to simulate concurential loads on a given application. And more then a couple of times I find myself in need to rollback VM's to different snapshots in order to replicate a certain bug and I need to do that without "taking a break".

During all this crazyness I keep Photoshop open and slowly but steadly continue to develop a web presence or just to provide a distraction from all the "crazy".

But the thing is the price difference is relatively small. The 12GB kit would be ~275 EUR and the 24GB kit would be ~355 EUR. That comes down to an ~80 EUR difference, for 12GB "extra" RAM. I was dead set on 12GB when I realised how small this difference can be with the small speed downgrade. I am skilled enough to overclock my system with any kind of RAM, but faster is always better (and easilier).

I remember 3 years ago, when everyone told me that 2GB is enough and I used to have 8GB in my computer and it felt really good. There is a strange thing, but RAM will suffer from fragmentation. The more you have the better.

As for a true dual socket workstation. I wish. But what I realised is even without overclock, I rarely make full use of the CPU, the bottlenecks with memory and storage keep the CPU quite underutilised, even if I have SSD's in RAID0. I only overclock for that extra responsiveness that it adds to the system.

[InnocentCriminal]

To me, it sounds as if you've already made up your mind on the 24GB. In which case it definitely sounds as if it won't be wasted even if you don't use all of it.

[TheMailMan78]

I work in Photoshop professionally and I used to run 8 gigs of RAM. I NEVER used it up. I went down to 4gigs for speed reasons. Even when I am working on major files 4 gigs is plenty. Hell I have TPU open, Bridge, iTunes, Illustrator and Photoshop with a 1gig file open right now and I am sitting at 70% with 4gigs.

[Frick]

Originally Posted by TheMailMan78

I work in Photoshop professionally and I used to run 8 gigs of RAM. I NEVER used it up. I went down to 4gigs for speed reasons. Even when I am working on major files 4 gigs is plenty. Hell I have TPU open, Bridge, iTunes, Illustrator and Photoshop with a 1gig file open right now and I am sitting at 70% with 4gigs.

Throw in some WM's there and see it get eaten up.

I would go for 12GB and buy beer or something for the rest, but that's just me.

[SpeedsticK]

The only reason why i would get 12+ gbs of ram would be if i did video encoding regularly, it does use up many cores and it does use up alot of ram, my cousin can almost max out his ram while doing encoding for work, and hes has 6 gigs of dominator GTs, and that just for 2 minute clips in HD.

[yogurt_21]

ramdisk 12gb and run the other 12 as system. though tbh an ssd in raid 0 would give around the same performance and cost less I think.

[n-ster]

a RAMdisk is HUNDREDS of times faster than any SSD in RAID 0...............

[MikeX]

RAMdisk would be perfect for Video editing and storing its working files /drool

[SpeedsticK]

Originally Posted by n-ster

a RAMdisk is HUNDREDS of times faster than any SSD in RAID 0...............

True Story, very fast.

[Sihastru]

Thanks a lot guys, if anyone wants to chip in and give their opinion why one or the other would be the better path, please continue to do so, at this time I am more an more leaning towards 24GB. I will make my final purchase decision by the end of the month. DDR3 prices continue to shift almost daily so who knows what goodies December will bring.