[SOLVED] Best Memory I can upgrade to

Sep 5, 2022
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Hi guys,

I have a system that is pre built and I'm looking to change the memory to a faster one, what would the best stable memory that would be compatible with my parts be?

CPU: intel core i7 9700k 3.6 ghz coffee lake
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z390 gaming pro carbon lga1151
GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio
RAM Currently: Corsair vengeance pro 4x8GB 2666mhz

Thank you in advance for any feedback & guidance as I'm not very tech savy.
 
Solution
His CPU isn't the problem, and he doesn't need more memory channels. Just some faster speed ram. 9th gen and 10th gen are quite similar, in design, and I would say the 9700k would be superior, to a 10400, in most things. The 10400 performs much better with 3200mhz ram, and I highly doubt his 9700k would be any different, in that regard.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csFwlKgZCzM


Even with heavily tuned 2666, it still didn't do very well.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhXxCoX0bso
Hey there,

Your mobo supports OC Ram up to 4400mhz. However, your CPU officially supports up to 2666mhz. However, the IMC on the 9700k would be fine for 3600mhz, so I'd suggest going that route.

A 2 x8 16gb kit like this:

PCPartPicker Part List

Memory: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3600 CL17 Memory ($115.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $115.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2022-09-07 11:35 EDT-0400


These DIMMs are on the QVL for your mobo, so should work straight away.
 

DSzymborski

Titan
Moderator
Best place to start would the memory compatibility list on MSI's page for the motherboard. No point going over 3200 or 3466 though.

If you're making upgrades to a prebuilt, I'm not sure that's really the best approach. Coffee Lake Intel CPUs don't get anywhere near the benefits of faster RAM that a Ryzen CPU does because of differences in architecture. If this is a prebuilt, there are likely better places to upgrade; prebuilts tend to have notoriously bad PSUs and poorly designed cases relative to their price point. If you already have RAM and you're not adding more RAM overall, faster RAM is a pretty bad bang for the buck upgrade.
 
Hi guys,

I have a system that is pre built and I'm looking to change the memory to a faster one, what would the best stable memory that would be compatible with my parts be?

CPU: intel core i7 9700k 3.6 ghz coffee lake
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z390 gaming pro carbon lga1151
GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 2080 Gaming X Trio
RAM Currently: Corsair vengeance pro 4x8GB 2666mhz

Thank you in advance for any feedback & guidance as I'm not very tech savy.
Share why you want to do this.
 
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Sep 5, 2022
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Hi all,

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's commented so far, it's been extremely helpful to hear everyones insight and I've learned alot already! :D

From what I've gathered above I'll probably shoot for a 3466 / 3600 set of ram and won't aim for anything higher due to my CPU limitations.

I'm aware ram isn't the best bang for the buck in terms of upgradable components but I'm just not willing to upgrade my CPU / GPU at the moment as they both still work quite well and are more than enough for what I use my PC for (Gaming).

Thank you all again and I greatly appreciate everyones advice!! ^^
 

Tugrul_512bit

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Nov 19, 2013
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If RAM bandwidth is the bottleneck, then you need a bigger CPU with more memory channels. If it is your own algorithm requiring that much bandwidth, then consider using video-memory and GPU as it has much better bandwidth (but probably smaller cache).
 
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logainofhades

Titan
Moderator
His CPU isn't the problem, and he doesn't need more memory channels. Just some faster speed ram. 9th gen and 10th gen are quite similar, in design, and I would say the 9700k would be superior, to a 10400, in most things. The 10400 performs much better with 3200mhz ram, and I highly doubt his 9700k would be any different, in that regard.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csFwlKgZCzM


Even with heavily tuned 2666, it still didn't do very well.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhXxCoX0bso
 
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Tugrul_512bit

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Nov 19, 2013
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Just some faster speed ram.

So, it is about latency rather than bandwidth. Reducing latency would have more effect than overclocking, in terms of stability, right? Switching from 2666 MHz to 3200 MHz RAM would yield maximum 20% performance gain and only in 100% RAM-bandwidth bottlenecked applications. For anything real-world, it would be around 10% gain max. Also overclocking RAM causes more heat on the L3 cache. But not sure if lowering RAM's CL timings causes more heat on L3 cache.
Just for 10% more performance only in select algorithms/apps/games that are not optimized, I would not risk an early RAM death or CPU overheat issue.
What is this for? More points in benchmarks? To surpass a guy in 3dmark by 5%, then sure, it is worth the OC effort.
 
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logainofhades

Titan
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Latency itself wasn't the issue, as the actual ram speed. That 2666 kit was highly tuned, to very tight timings, for ddr4, and still it couldn't overcome the performance difference, using 3200. I used to be one of those, "Ram speed doesn't really matter, for Intel" types, but the 10400 review, and the followup video to it, showed me that really is no longer the case.

LTT had an interesting take on this.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbBpmGX7K4w
 
Sep 5, 2022
6
1
15
His CPU isn't the problem, and he doesn't need more memory channels. Just some faster speed ram. 9th gen and 10th gen are quite similar, in design, and I would say the 9700k would be superior, to a 10400, in most things. The 10400 performs much better with 3200mhz ram, and I highly doubt his 9700k would be any different, in that regard.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csFwlKgZCzM


Even with heavily tuned 2666, it still didn't do very well.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhXxCoX0bso
I watched both videos, sheesh it's a whole lot of info to digest for a noobie.. t_t

I had previously thought RAM only meant I could open more applications at once so I wasn't too concerned about it when I bought my PC to begin with..

Upon learning it can affect FPS I started to consider upgrading the kit hahaha, There's so much good info in those videos provided that helps justify the costs of the upgrade moving forward.

Thanks alot for the guidance bro dearly appreciated! :D
 

Tugrul_512bit

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If your apps/games require just a bit more capacity than your RAM, then increasing RAM capacity gives you a lot of performance. But, also getting a bigger CPU cache (by buying a bigger CPU) is better for less RAM-bandwidth dependency. Less RAM-bandwidth dependency = less performance drop from RAM-bandwidth-bottlenecked apps. But yeah, just to be less RAM dependent, upgrading CPU is overkill.
 
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If your apps/games require just a bit more capacity than your RAM, then increasing RAM capacity gives you a lot of performance. But, also getting a bigger CPU cache (by buying a bigger CPU) is better for less RAM-bandwidth dependency. Less RAM-bandwidth dependency = less performance drop from RAM-bandwidth-bottlenecked apps. But yeah, just to be less RAM dependent, upgrading CPU is overkill.
Oh I see that makes sense, yeah I also think upgrading the CPU would be overkill at the moment. When my PC eventually dies I'll consider buying a new system from scratch and I'll keep that in mind.

From what I've heard for a better / bigger CPU I'll go with the AMD next time as it seems to deliver more for the same costs.

Thank you for your feedback! :)
 

Tugrul_512bit

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Yeah, AMD has added a lot more threads lately, with all of them it can easily use all its I/O channels. But Intel is going wider SIMD per core and it can yield better performance in some games. Because wider SIMD (like 512 bits instead of 256) makes more register-memory within CPU and nearly double compute-power. With more registers, some very few algorithms can actually need the cache less. But its very low probability to have game makers optimize all the stuff for AVX512 to decrease cache dependency. So I'd choose AMD. If you will develop parallel computation applications, AVX512 could add some more options to you.
 
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Tugrul_512bit

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For gaming, depending on algorithm, AVX512 can even decrease the performance due to less turbo frequency boost. Because even when just 1 core computes AVX512, all other cores could decrease their turbo frequency. At least it is what is happening in C++ compiler servers. Even the inventor of Linux said "I hope AVX 512 dies a painful death". I guess Torvalds likes AMD more.
 
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