Does RAM matter (price vs performance)

[p1que]

Should i shell out more money for some corsair vengeance or should i just buy some cheaper ram that is the same amount of gigs for cheaper?

 

[snowctrl]

Do you wanna over clock? If not then cheap RAM is fine. Do look at the Mhz though - it's not just about the amount of RAM... and then there's the Dual/Triple/Quad channel thing....

 

[unknownofprob]

The expensive ram tends to perform roughly the same, just they add fancy heatsinks which are pretty much useless, as ram doesn't tend to get hot in the first place. I am not saying that the ram is identical, its not, the timings are less and the speed tends to be higher, Though you can overclock Ram anyways so there is no real point in buying it pre-overclocked as it just costs more. I'd jest get a cheap pair of ram @ 1600Mhz with tight timings, CL of 9 and below if preferable.

 

[fkr]

The expensive ram tends to perform roughly the same, just they add fancy heatsinks which are pretty much useless, as ram doesn't tend to get hot in the first place. I am not saying that the ram is identical, its not, the timings are less and the speed tends to be higher, Though you can overclock Ram anyways so there is no real point in buying it pre-overclocked as it just costs more. I'd jest get a cheap pair of ram @ 1600Mhz with tight timings, CL of 9 and below if preferable.

this is the truth. heat spreaders are not needed and any descent tight timing 1600 Ram sticks will serve you well.

my cheap sticks run at 10-10-10-27 timings and are at 1950MHz.

EDIT:

also make sure that they are running at 1.5 volts

 

[snowctrl]

I'll put it another way - if your'e gonna over clock, you want the limiting factor to be the CPU that your over clocking - you don't wanna be held back by cheap RAM. Now your cheap RAM might be just fine for your over clocking, but then again it might not.... There's a reason companies that sell overclocked PCs use Vengeance RAM

 

[jdcranke07]

Should i shell out more money for some corsair vengeance or should i just buy some cheaper ram that is the same amount of gigs for cheaper?

The expensive ram tends to perform roughly the same, just they add fancy heatsinks which are pretty much useless, as ram doesn't tend to get hot in the first place. I am not saying that the ram is identical, its not, the timings are less and the speed tends to be higher, Though you can overclock Ram anyways so there is no real point in buying it pre-overclocked as it just costs more. I'd jest get a cheap pair of ram @ 1600Mhz with tight timings, CL of 9 and below if preferable.

unknownofprob pretty much said it. The difference, when speaking of gaming, in between speeds is not really that different at all. The faster speeds typically have higher CAS which negates the whole thing. Lower CAS and 1600Mhz is more than enough speed for gaming and averge rendering for workstations. However, getting about 16GB of RAM will keep up for quite a while. Some recommend 8GB as all you'll need, but that's all based on preference. I personally have 24GB instead of 32GB cause I damaged a RAM stick taking off the heatsink so I could liquid cool it (aesthetics only).

 

[geofelt]

Most ram has lifetime warranties and all seem to be good.
I second the assertion that fancy heat spreaders are mostly marketing.
They might be useful if you are a competitive ram overclocker.
Mostly, they hurt by interfering with air coolers.

From a performance point of view, faster specs do not seem to help real app or fps performance.
That is because higher speeds require higher latencies, negating most of the speed advantage.
Here is a good article on haswell ram scaling:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7364/memory-scaling-on-haswell
My recommendations:

1. Buy enough. for most 2 x 4gb is ok, but why not get 2 x 8gb if you can afford it.
2. Buy 1.5v ram, DDR3 1866 at most.
3. Favor lower latencies.

If you will use amd cpu's or integrated graphics, faster ram will help.