What is fast reliable RAM

[jonnyboyy101]

I am building a nice quality ATX computer and my origionally was going to go with G.SKILL Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-1866C10D-16GAB

It is $154, i am okay with spending that kind of money on ram but i was wondering if there is anything faster or the same but for a better price?

 

[Havo_k]

DDR3-2400

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231589&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

 

[Bombular]

go with high frequenceys and low latencys
This is a good pair of RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231476&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Desktop+Memory-_-N82E16820231476&gclid=Cj0KEQiA8MSkBRCP5LaRlcOAusMBEiQAiqldkrq0Y-klzkMJL7razR4wtIq9qwcOmc2vImvLBOHgPTIaAlep8P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[i7Baby]

Or something in between - http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f32133c9d16gtx

 

[prettyflvcko]

I recently bought Team Vulcan GOLD 16GB (2 x 8GB) for my dad's rig, actually I was very afraid of buying this ram because the brand isnt as popular as corsair for example. BUT the performance are amazing ! I would highly reccomend it to anybody seriously the price is incredible.

Here is a link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313408

Otherwise you could go with this G.SKILL Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2400

Here is a link: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231671

I tryied a lot of brands, models & speed, but these are worth the money.
Most of the people says to go with corsair, but seriously these two are very bang for the bucks

 

[Rookie_MIB]

Well, in general, to figure out 'faster' a quick and dirty way is to divide the mhz by the cas speed. This gives you a rough number to compare different speed/cas setups.

For example, you have 1866 c10 ram which comes out (conveniently) to 186 'score' for $154.00

Gskill also makes another set of DDR3 (Ripjaws X 16gb kit) which is a 2133 cas 9 which gets a rough score of 237.

That puts it about 25% faster for 6% more money. Here's the link for it at newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231571

Of course, you have to make sure your motherboard will support 2133 mhz memory speeds, but if it does I'd go with the Ripjaws set I linked you to and it (IMHO) would be no-brainer (again assuming mobo support). One other quick note, because the 2133 c9 is the max speed it can run at, it can certainly run at a -slower- speed, and might have a corresponding lower cas timing than 9. If that's the case, if it runs at a (just a wild guess) 1866 cas 8, you'd still have a higher score and would still be signficantly quicker than the 1866 cas 10 memory you're looking at.

 

[photonboy]

More than 1866MHz CAS9 generally does not benefit so I wouldn't pay more. This has been tested many times and the only times we see benefit are scenarios that aren't very likely to happen (gaming with high-end CPU at really low resolution etc).

The calculation in the above post if accurate is only THEORETICAL if the CPU doesn't really benefit from the faster memory.

So I recommend sticking with the original kit which is likely similar to THIS:
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f31866c9d16gsr

FYI, 2400MHz memory is most likely statistically less reliable. If it could benefit I'd say go for it but since it really doesn't I wouldn't bother. Also the higher the CAS the lower performance so be careful if comparing kits.

 

[rdc85]

the only one that can guaranty reliability is ecc ram used in server ... 😀

joking aside, i think your first choice of g.skill is good.. (any model)
(it one of brands that I trust, used in my old built, this hynix give me some compatibility issue)

 

[i7Baby]

Along similar lines, it seems to me that best bang for the buck at the moment is around 1866 or 2133 cas 9.

 

[photonboy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWgzA2C61z4

Linus from Techtips. It's generally true, though there are scenarios where 1866MHz definitely beats 1333MHz by a few percent that the average person might still encounter.

(To be thorough, if you have an APU it's a different story as it uses System RAM so you can be really bottlenecked with the wrong APU and DDR3 choice)