What memory would you select?

[joseph2011]

What memory would you select for the following processor-motherboard combination?

Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K

Intel BOXDZ77GA70K LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

 

[o1die]

Use 1.5 volt 1333 or 1600 ram in one of these brands: corsair, crucial, kingston, gskill, or pny. All are pretty good. Value ram is ok, but is marginal; example, you'll pay a little more for crucial ballystix, but it's better quality.

 

[joseph2011]

Best answer selected by joseph2011.

 

[joseph2011]

Thanks, o1die.

 

[joseph2011]

Use 1.5 volt 1333 or 1600 ram in one of these brands: corsair, crucial, kingston, gskill, or pny. All are pretty good. Value ram is ok, but is marginal; example, you'll pay a little more for crucial ballystix, but it's better quality.

I am strongly considering this...

Crucial Ballistix 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model BLT2KIT8G3D1608DT1TX0

It uses timings of 8-8-8-24. Do you see a problem with these timings in the following processor-motherboard combo?

Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K

Intel BOXDZ77GA70K LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Thanks!

 

[o1die]

No, but I don't have the rest of the ram specs in front of me. If it's 1.5 volt, then it should work, but some ram will default to different timings depending on the motherboard. Or you may have to set the timings in manual mode. I never pay a premium for faster timings, but if you know how to set it correctly, you may get your money's worth.

 

[bryanl]

Use 1.5 volt 1333 or 1600 ram in one of these brands: corsair, crucial, kingston, gskill, or pny. All are pretty good. Value ram is ok, but is marginal; example, you'll pay a little more for crucial ballystix, but it's better quality.

It all boils down to the quality of the chips and whether or not the chips are overclocked. The brand of the RAM stick matters little, except for warranty service.

The best chips are marked as Samsung, Micron, etc. while B-quality chips are marked Corsair, Kingston, GSkill, etc. or with nothing meaningful. Heat spreaders are a good way to hide such information, especially the speed ratings of the chips. This may be the most important function of heat spreaders (cooling is not).

Ballistix has been Crucial's most troublesome line of RAM by far and not just coincidentally its only line with heat spreaders and higher voltage ratings. Crucial's better quality RAM is all rather plain looking and often cheaper.

Samsung modules are always good quality, simply because they're always made with A-quality chips and are never overclocked.

 

[joseph2011]

It all boils down to the quality of the chips and whether or not the chips are overclocked. The brand of the RAM stick matters little, except for warranty service.

The best chips are marked as Samsung, Micron, etc. while B-quality chips are marked Corsair, Kingston, GSkill, etc. or with nothing meaningful. Heat spreaders are a good way to hide such information, especially the speed ratings of the chips. This may be the most important function of heat spreaders (cooling is not).

Ballistix has been Crucial's most troublesome line of RAM by far and not just coincidentally its only line with heat spreaders and higher voltage ratings. Crucial's better quality RAM is all rather plain looking and often cheaper.

Samsung modules are always good quality, simply because they're always made with A-quality chips and are never overclocked.

Bryan, thanks for the response. Which type of RAM would you personally buy for this configuration?

Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K

Intel BOXDZ77GA70K LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

I am not a gamer. I will primary use the computer for high-end, very math-intensive spreadsheet calculations that typically take one hour to perform on a Core 2 with 4 GB of memory, as well as creating animations of very resource-intensive graphics of contour analysis charts (science applications).

 

[o1die]

Hynix ram is made by samsung. Dell uses them in their servers.