[SOLVED] Performance of DDR3 high frequency low latency in 2021

[Khaleeja]

Hello everyone!
I have a custom build PC from 2014. i5-4670k OC at 4.3GHz on a MSI z87 G45 motherboard. (4x4) 16GB DDR3 1600MHz CL9 OC at 1866MHz + 32GB of swapping paging partition (I actually really need a big partition). msi 1070 and double monitor 1080p @60. My common use is computer science studing and excercises, so compiling programs and lots of browser pages (from 9 to 50, 50 are only spikes in time when i cannot find a specific solution to a problem)); Games, from light to heavy and in the triangle of fps, resolution and quality I'm the all quality possible sacrificing fps; 3D graphics, moddeling, texturing and rendering, plus sometime UE4 projects. When I took enough images on my astrophotography setup I stack and process them. Heavy CPU and Disk speed dependant process. When the video card is not in use I leave it to mine crypto. So I consider my usage as pretty heavy and lots of multitasking. I regret the decision of buying a i5 at that time as I thought that I wouldn't have done much 3D graphics outside of gaming.
On my amazon cart I have a build for an 3970x PC for a total of + € 5K. Still I'm not really willing to spend this much money since I'm still an university student and i don't have a job. Also starting a new expensive hobby as astrophotoraphy is not helpful.
My solution I thought is to upgrade my processor with an 4790k for € 120 to unlock multithreading, delid and OC it hopefullly at 4.7GHz. As extimated power it should be -5% compared to my brother's 7700k PC. Sell my kit ram to recover some money and buy 32gb ram. The limit of my processor is 32 so I cannot go higher.

Now the actual question in the title. What ram to choose? I found on ebay a listing for (4x4) 32gb of 2133MHz cl14 at €140 and one at 2400MHz cl11 at €250. Using notkyon.moe website,
my current ram should have 11.25 ns latency.
The 2133 has 13.12ns.
The 2400 has 9.17ns. (I don't know much but this modules sound OP)

My motherboard support XME up to 3000MHz DDR3.

I'm trying to make my PC last longer as possible instead of spending €5K without videocard. So based on my usage, do you consider it more ram speed dependant compared to the other guys/gals that ask comparison speed for ingame fps?
In 2021 where soon DDR5 will came out, does still matter to spend double price for a ram kit that sound only better on paper compared to another same gen ram kit?
Are anywhere benchmarks that shows results between different speed and latencies that are not just Linus videos or similar but actually have results on other programs and other workflows and usages rather than just games?
How much this difference in price, speed and latency affect my setup? If I could get +10% gain in averaged performance i could call it fair. If it's +5% mmm... ok maybe? If less than maybe not worth it.

Thank you in advance!

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

The question you need to ask yourself is how much are you saving when you sacrifice not moving onto the latest and greatest? I mean yes you do save a lot in terms of your wallet, but then there's the heat dump, the cooling needed and the amount of time needed for waiting while others might get the job done faster with concurrent hardware and also dump a lot less heat for the amount of work done.

There's also the intermittent issue about you investing say maybe 500 or even a thousand Euro's on the current platform only to see that the motherboard died. If you're sure your motherboard hasn't had any hissing fits in the past and that you're on the latest BIOS update without a hiccup, then yes I'd go for an i7-4790K, then drop the most amount of ram that the slots can handle, which is 32GB and at only DDR3-2133MHz, since any higher and you might botch the IMC or worse might not even go higher than DDR2133MHz.

Considering the platform is old, the only advantage you get is adding more ram(capacity) not the frequency since DDR4 at 2133MHz transfers more data than DDR3 at 2133MHz, no need to explain what DDR4 at 3200MHz can do. DDR4 also sips on power, when compared to DDR3.