What do you think is the best RAM?

[Madmaxneo]

I only found out about it 2 months ago,
http://blog.gsmarena.com/sk-hynix-develops-128gb-ddr4-ram-module/

As for DDR5 that has been a theoretical possibility in computer science for a while but it has never been developed as testing on the viability of a 128Gb DDR4 had not been done before. If the 128Gb DDR 4 is successful in the commercial sector the next step is to develop the architecture for the DDR5 bus for placement of four 64Gb memory modules on the board.

Further the question regarding DDR5 development is not when they do it it is IF they do it at all, there are far better methods for developing better means of RAM storage with greater capacity and speed.

Theoretically they are looking at an option called a Data Cube, a device that would allow you to store 2 Tb per inch cubed. It apparently would work with some kind of layered photonic data storage system, but I do not completely understand how they expect to achieve the results the claim on the DARPA website, a total storage capacity of 10 Eb and transfer rate of 28 Ghz per 0.5 sec, I really don't understand this as by today's standard's a Nvidia Tesla K20 series Parallel Processing Card will take 1.76 sec to transfer data, also another thing I do not understand about this Data cube thing that has been theorised is why would it have a on board processor and with built in ALU ?

That article was written over a year ago and that is the first I have heard of this. I am thinking it has went back to the drawing board.

The funny thing about that article are the comments below it. The first few comments are about android phones...... and then there is the comment "you realize that this RAM module is not for home PC?"
I am wondering if the wrong comments loaded up for the article because it is obviously about PC RAM.
How big would a phone need to be to fit that size of a RAM strip in it?....lol....
It's to bad the comments are closed for that article.

 

[Jonathon Mirza]

Possibly I was wandering the same thing about the comments as well. Yea they will obviously be using this is servers to begin with, but after that and the development of 256Gb RAM (or a bettor RAM device) comes along 128Gb DDR 4 will be made available to home PC users, I would imagine that would be some time in the next 2 years. Just imagine the kick that will give the guys at Berkeley who run BOINC.

 

[Madmaxneo]

But at the same time, how beneficial would that much RAM be for a modern system? They have 16gb strips for DDR3 systems and I have heard of larger strips than that. Consumers can purchase them but they are really expensive. I talked to a sales rep because I was interested in some and he said that they produce them on an as needed basis (and usually in bulk) which is why they are so expensive, and that very few consumers purchase them.

I doubt that much RAM is feasible for consumer level use, even on DDR4.

 

[Jonathon Mirza]

Thats why I would imagine it would only be available after 256Gb is developed.

I can give you more information on this in a few months time as "I will be starting studying Computer Science from home as I ordered a bunch of AQA, OCR and other books on Computer Science for students (university level stuff) I am also intending to work on my maths in hopes of getting a GCSE to go to university), but I also got to do my science (one point below c due to over confidence) and English as well at GCSE level again so 2016 and 2017 will be tough as hell for me and lots of knuckling under.
As for computer science I am at university level now, but there is still a lot I don't know. I am mostly self thought, a conceptual learner. Well Hardware Engineering is something I want to do just to dam bad.
As much as I hate being told what to do, as much as I hate teachers, I just got to put up with it, listen and pay attention and to hell with my own short comings."

 

[Jonathon Mirza]

Sorry for the tangent in my previous post

 

[Madmaxneo]

As a side note a friend of mine who owns a local game shop has his dream machine super computer in the store for people to play games on. He has a dual cpu Xeon processor with something like 196 gb of RAM. It is, of course, the ecc RAM I mentioned earlier. It is pretty fast though I have yet to ask him if he has done any benchmarks on it.....

 

[alsmith]

What a stupid question.

What standard of memory ? DDR4, PCI, there are loads of variations.
What is its use- work pc or mac, handheld, notebook, gaming?
Will it be overclocked? Or used in a 24/7 server?

There's static RAM (SRAM) and dynamic RAM (DRAM).

DIMMs and RIMMS

The best RAM is the one that suits your application.

 

[Madmaxneo]

What a stupid question.

What standard of memory ? DDR4, PCI, there are loads of variations.
What is its use- work pc or mac, handheld, notebook, gaming?
Will it be overclocked? Or used in a 24/7 server?

There's static RAM (SRAM) and dynamic RAM (DRAM).

DIMMs and RIMMS

The best RAM is the one that suits your application.

It's not a stupid question but more of a misleading one. As the OP has stated a few times on here there is no really perfect RAM. It all depends on the system you have. But there are so many people out there that ask that simple question because they just don't know or understand (much like me when I first started building my current rig). This article will help a lot of people understand more.
Though the truth is there is some RAM that performs better than others in certain set ups.... hopefully this thread will shed some light for some people in that regard.

 

[Tradesman1]

Very true, sort of explored that in my article here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/dram-benchmark-fluctuations,review-33154.html

 

[Madmaxneo]

Very true, sort of explored that in my article here:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/dram-benchmark-fluctuations,review-33154.html

Speaking of which, where's part 2?.....

I am in a conundrum now with my setup.
FYI I have a 4930k on an ASUS Rampage IV BE MB with 2 strips of 8gb Trident X 2133mhz, watercooled with the Swiftech H240-x

When I was first putting this board together an Asus tech recommended 4 strips of RAM for better performance.

Everyone else I talked to said 2 strips is fine if not better.

Currently my max stable OC is 4.3ghz with a 1.36 vcore.
Which is below average. The base OC is 4.4 ghz for an average CPU.

Now another individual on the OC forums is telling me the system will run better when my RAM is in quad channel (meaning 4 sticks) and he also says that it is really not that big of a deal if one orders their RAM strips at different times as opposed to others saying to order all your RAM in one kit. He has done this and has not had any ill effects with DDR3 so far. I have done this in the past, most recently with my socket 775 core 2 quad, and the OC on that old beast didn't suffer at all.
So I am debating on if I should just go ahead and purchase another 2 8gb strips of the same exact RAM as I have now, and then hope it works out for the better. Right now the cost is close to $100 for 2 8gb strips....

so my conundrum

 

[Tradesman1]

Good questions, was supposed to have been published the 17th, but they got tied up with the new AMD GPUs and the Broadwell CPU, haven't heard back from them on a new date yet and have been tied up with regular work and working on reviews of some sets of DDR3

On the 'advice' given, yes you will have better performance in quad channel - 4 or 8 sticks/strips. In the article above, of the sets I tested for it, two of models used were sticks that aren't sold in 4 stick sets, (the AMD and the ADATA), in those case I was able to get both the 2 stick sets to play with minor voltage/timing adjustments, but that doesn't always work (and these were direct from the manufacturers). I was just working with a couple sets of 2 sticks from another manufacturer that interestingly enough I was able to get them to play on an Intel rig, but they simply refused to play on my AMD rig (and they were only 1866 sticks).

In the second part of the FAQs and Fiction article, I treat mixing DRAM as what it is, a 50/50 crapshoot, they might play, they might not, and if they do at all they may need adjustments to run stable (Part 1 of that article is here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-dram-faq,4154.html

 

[bnmjk]

I can't say (NDA), unless something changes it should be in the news tomorrow

 

[Ceidleigh]

In my opinion, the best RAM is the Crucial Ballistix Sport 4x4GB.

I used to have 8GB ram, but I found that with all of the really RAM-Demanding games like DayZ needed more.
The black part of the RAM stick matches the build I currently own, which is black and blue-colored.
I also used to have very slow 1066-MHz ram, which was also not a factor that would speed up my pc.

Agreed. I have the same...you know your stuff!

 

[18JohnsonPatrick]

I just built a new computer and have been loving the 8gb corsair ram kit they offered I run games from Minecraft and Counter Strike to Star Citizen and Crysis. I run the 1600MHz ram (dual channel) and am able to run Star Citizen at ultra settings with 120fps.

 

[elmie]

From a computer nerd point, a good or best ram would be a ram module that can overclock well without upping too much voltage. the more voltage to achieve a higher clock speed or not been able to overclock well is consider bad ram.
However. some ram modules are just good, because they are just plan old reliable, you install it and it just work. (those are for ppl who do not care about overclock). those type of ram I consider best IMO. because end of the day you just want it to work. If you want it go faster, buy faster ram.
benchmark has also shown that a 1333 - 1600 -1800 in real life general work and game, don't add great deal of difference to it. It is only good for 1 or 2 very typical task that might or might not need actual ram speed to make any differences. Most ppl just use their computer for 4 things, play games, do office like stuff, watch multimedia stuff (music/movies/etc), and surf the internet (for porn?)

 

[Madmaxneo]

Good questions, was supposed to have been published the 17th, but they got tied up with the new AMD GPUs and the Broadwell CPU, haven't heard back from them on a new date yet and have been tied up with regular work and working on reviews of some sets of DDR3

On the 'advice' given, yes you will have better performance in quad channel - 4 or 8 sticks/strips. In the article above, of the sets I tested for it, two of models used were sticks that aren't sold in 4 stick sets, (the AMD and the ADATA), in those case I was able to get both the 2 stick sets to play with minor voltage/timing adjustments, but that doesn't always work (and these were direct from the manufacturers). I was just working with a couple sets of 2 sticks from another manufacturer that interestingly enough I was able to get them to play on an Intel rig, but they simply refused to play on my AMD rig (and they were only 1866 sticks).

In the second part of the FAQs and Fiction article, I treat mixing DRAM as what it is, a 50/50 crapshoot, they might play, they might not, and if they do at all they may need adjustments to run stable (Part 1 of that article is here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-dram-faq,4154.html

I know it's been awhile but I was perusing the past comments on this post and after seeing your comment on part two of the article I figured I would give you an update.
I was running a 4930k on RIVBE MB with 16gb of RAM. The highest stable OC was 4.3ghz at 1.36 vcore. But I only had 2 sticks of the 8gb Trident-X 2133mhz. Everyone else I had talked to that achieved a much higher OC had 4 sticks of RAM. So I decided to purchase 2 more strips of the 8gb RAM I have. I installed it and everything runs pretty much the same as before. I get the same exact OC numbers and am still limited to the 4.3ghz at 1.36vcore. Yes I lost the silicon lottery (thought I am get free spin through the intel replacement program) but it seems so far that adding an additional set of 2 strips of RAM made no difference in stability. In that I won the RAM lottery.

I am wondering if there is some kind of statistic that shows the percentage of people that do this and end up with an unstable system because of it. I am thinking it would be a low number for failures compared to the percentage that have not had problems. I have done this since the early 2000's and have never had a problem with instability (back then I was even mixing different types of RAM). The last time (prior to my current rig) being on a core 2 quad (Q6700 socket 775) with DDR2 RAM. There are two different types of RAM in that system and it runs at a 3.3ghz OC from the base of 2.66ghz.

So my question would be; Am I extremely lucky or is it more common for RAM to generally work well together?

 

[Tradesman1]

That's a good question....the short answer is that's it's basically a toss up if they will play when mixing sticks. Call it 50/50. Then on to the more complicated answer that it may be closer to 75/25 for them working. The 50/50 is for right out of the box and into the rig and power on - they work or they don't. Then you can increase the odds if one is familiar w/ DRAM, or reaches out to someone familiar with DRAM...And by that I mean a friend or reaching out to say here in the forums.

I've heard numerous stories of people calling the DRAM manufacturers and simply getting a response to the effect of, "there's no guarantee when mixing - go buy a full package of the amount you want" , it's seldome that they will work with you to try voltage or timing adjustments. That is the key, you can often get them to play by increasing the DRAM voltage up a little, I normally start at + 0.05, if no joy move on to adding a small amount to the MC (memory controller) and here it differs, Intel it often takes only a little, but with INtel it can take a fair amount which scares many as, AMD MCs are on the weaker side and they are actually more attuned to only running 2 sticks of DRAM. Then you can go into the timings, the base timings can often be raised a hair (say 1 ea) and that can get them to play, if still balky then you head in to the secondary timings (often notably the tRFC which is often low when going from 2 to say 4 sticks), though other timings can play in also. Had planned an article on OCing DRAM where I would go more into depth on the primary, and secondary timings along with voltages and how they play (which may still come about, somewhere ), plan was to also note things that would help when mixing packages to help get them to play)

 

[Madmaxneo]

That's a good question....the short answer is that's it's basically a toss up if they will play when mixing sticks. Call it 50/50. Then on to the more complicated answer that it may be closer to 75/25 for them working. The 50/50 is for right out of the box and into the rig and power on - they work or they don't. Then you can increase the odds if one is familiar w/ DRAM, or reaches out to someone familiar with DRAM...And by that I mean a friend or reaching out to say here in the forums.

I've heard numerous stories of people calling the DRAM manufacturers and simply getting a response to the effect of, "there's no guarantee when mixing - go buy a full package of the amount you want" , it's seldome that they will work with you to try voltage or timing adjustments. That is the key, you can often get them to play by increasing the DRAM voltage up a little, I normally start at + 0.05, if no joy move on to adding a small amount to the MC (memory controller) and here it differs, Intel it often takes only a little, but with INtel it can take a fair amount which scares many as, AMD MCs are on the weaker side and they are actually more attuned to only running 2 sticks of DRAM. Then you can go into the timings, the base timings can often be raised a hair (say 1 ea) and that can get them to play, if still balky then you head in to the secondary timings (often notably the tRFC which is often low when going from 2 to say 4 sticks), though other timings can play in also. Had planned an article on OCing DRAM where I would go more into depth on the primary, and secondary timings along with voltages and how they play (which may still come about, somewhere ), plan was to also note things that would help when mixing packages to help get them to play)

That's good info and I wonder if there is more to the how (or where) the RAM is manufactured having some effect in this? Does each company actually produce their own RAM or is it something like the PSU dilema?

 

[Tradesman1]

Oh yes, and it also helps explain, in part why people have trouble mixing DRAM - lots of differences, below is a passage (most of this was cut by staff prior to publication for this article (Item 2)

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-dram-myths,4155.html:



"DRAM is made up (basically) of memory chips that are soldered to a PCB for a simplistic explanation, that is driven with electricity. During the course of a production run of DRAM sticks of a given model, they might be finishing up a large section of PCB that has been cut to the DIMM size and switch to a new PCB that was from a different production lot of the PCB material, which can provide ever so slightly different properties, than the previous PCB used. Same can happen with the physical solder being used, or they may change to a completely different kind, which has ever so slightly different conductivity properties. Then there are the chips themselves, when made by the actual chip manufacturer the chips are binned by the manufacturer as to quality. Let’s take a closer theoretical look at this.
A single production lot may result in say 1,000 memory chips. These are then separated or binned to a number of levels. We’ll say to a fair degree of maybe 4 levels – A through D. We’ll say A (200 chips) is entry level, B (350 chips) is a little better, C (300 chips) even better and D (150 chips) are the best chips. They then sell these chips to two separate manufacturers; we’ll sell them to Wiley Coyote’s favorite manufacture ACME and the rest to our second company who we’ll call Deluxe DRAM (a highly rated company….. Of that production lot ACME might buy all the A chips (for the lower prices) most of the B and a few of the C chips, then the Deluxe DRAM company buys the rest, so each company has an equal amount of chips 500.
ACME get their chips and decides they can make 60 sticks so they simply make 15 ea. of 1333, 1600, 1866, and 2133….and start with A binned chips and use them till they run out, then move to the B sticks and on up. Since they bought very few of the better chips, then some of their 2133 sticks are using C rated chips, most of their 1866 sticks are made with a combination of B-C chips then finally the 1333 and 1600 sticks are from a combination of A and B chips.
Across the street Deluxe DRAM takes their new chips and further separates them to their own specs and they might end up after the binning process with 5 separate groups of chips, adding a E category to the existing, they then make 1333 sticks out of the A chips, 1600 out of the B etc. and have some bonus high end 2400 sticks.
When they each go to make their sticks, Deluxe DRAM gets high end PCBs and solder, and ACME (while I won’t say they buy cheap, but they might), takes a different route and buys different PCBs and a different brand of solder. Also each use their own production equipment and have their own specs as to how much solder is used, the temps they have things set at etc.
Once the sticks are made, each manufacturer then takes the sticks and test them as to their tolerances and match/test the sticks further to a point where they know the sticks that go together in a given package will play together – and they guarantee those sticks in that package to play together. (It’s possible that they might even plan to get say four 4 stick sets out of a given production lot – and not be able to find four sets of 4 sticks that will play together. (In than given scenario, you can see where if you buy two packages of 2 sticks they might not play, and is why the manufacturers won’t guarantee mixing sets
Further if you were to go out and buy a 1866 stick from each company you effectively are probably getting a different PCB in each, different solder which has variable conducting qualities from the other and quite possibly different graded chips and/or chips from different manufacturers..
Now throw in that there a number of companies making memory chips, which further adds to the questionability of compatibility (and all those other ‘bility’s’ that might play in), and you might start to see why mixing sticks can be and often is problematic.
We also might note that most all newer lines of DRAM use 4Gb memory chips where older lines the norm was 2Gb memory chips. (Whoo! glad that one’s out of the way)

 

[napninjanx]

CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 128GB (8 x 16GB) is my favorite, I'm just power thirsty and love to max everything out for fun. Plus that memory is so expansive. Have not build a PC of 128 GB yet.

Here is a picture

Plus it has Speed: 2400MHz and Heatspreader: Aluminum with DHX

 

[anubisX]

Cheap & Great : Crucial Ballistix Sport

 

[waeez_72]

I just got G.Skill Sniper 2x4GB, 1600MHz.

 

[seeingeyegod]

Best RAM is the RAM on your motherboard's list of compatible memory that you can actually find in stock somewhere.

 

[Tradesman1]

Best RAM is the RAM on your motherboard's list of compatible memory that you can actually find in stock somewhere.

________________________________

The DRAM listed on a QVL is simply models they have in there testing facility at the time, oft times you will find models they still have in their test site, but quite possibly haven't been available for possibly years. It often is made up of an extremely small subset of suitable DRAM and often excludes many of the 'better' models available for purchase as they might not have any due to price or other limitations at the release

 

[seeingeyegod]

Best RAM is the RAM on your motherboard's list of compatible memory that you can actually find in stock somewhere.

________________________________

The DRAM listed on a QVL is simply models they have in there testing facility at the time, oft times you will find models they still have in their test site, but quite possibly haven't been available for possibly years. It often is made up of an extremely small subset of suitable DRAM and often excludes many of the 'better' models available for purchase as they might not have any due to price or other limitations at the release

Have you worked in motherboard or RAM validation? I've had several experiences where compatible on paper RAM flat out refused to work in a (server) board. I've also had RAM that was rated for a certain speed and was compatible on paper with a consumer gaming board not run stabily at rated speed, but everything was fine once I got RAM on the list. Also sometimes companies will not give you hardware support with motherboard issues if you are not using RAM on their compatibility list. Also modern boards will always show a list of modern RAM that is pretty new on the market, but whether that is in a configuration you want (set of 2, 4, size, etc) at the price you want to find can be a challenge.