Which ram is better?

[sethwilliam]

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f314900cl9d8gbxl

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f314900cl9d8gbsr

Which one of those?

 

[smeezekitty]

They appear identical in specs.

 

[thor220]

It boils down to looks and size. The sniper ram is a low-profile set of ram. This means it can fit under larger heatsinks. Other than that, that's the only advantage the sniper has. It have a set with 16GB of the g.skill sniper series ram myself and it works and looks great.

 

[DarkSable]

Go with the cheaper pair. That being said, neither of those is low profile, so that might be of some concern.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Both of those kits qualify as low profile. Either will fit under any of the large air coolers. Go with the Ripjaws as it's cheaper. As said above they are identical specs. The only difference is looks.

 

[sethwilliam]

Yeah I'm getting the the coolermaster hyper 212 Evo so it's a big heat sink.
I like the look of the sniper series. But I'm going to underclock to 1600 if that makes a differance and does OC ram have better effects on gaming?

 

[DarkSable]

Your ram has basically no effect on gaming performance, so don't worry about it?

 

[Deleted member 217926]

If you want DDR3 1600 then buy DDR3 1600. Underclocking RAM makes no sense.

You will get slightly better performance out of DDR3 1866.

 

[sethwilliam]

Making it perform at under the "available" speed makes it work cooler n stuff right? Or would OC the ram not damage it at all/produce to much heat?

 

[thor220]

Making it perform at under the "available" speed makes it work cooler n stuff right? Or would OC the ram not damage it at all/produce to much heat?

No it will be the same temp, but you could undervolt it though.

the sniper is 2mm shorter

http://www.gskill.com/products.php?index=378
http://www.gskill.com/products.php?index=385

 

[DarkSable]

Ram produces very, very little heat... to the point where the heatsinks found on modern ram are purely decorative - you can take them off and the ram won't even notice.

 

[sethwilliam]

So does OC Ram effect it at all? Maybe shortening it life or somthing? If not ill go with the sniper series and OC just don't wanna ruin it.
Srry if I seem a bit paranoid just never OC anything before and everyone makes it seem like some dangerous thing

 

[smeezekitty]

I wouldn't overclock RAM. It usually becomes unstable leading to BSoDs, crashes and other problems.

 

[DarkSable]

Like smeezekitty said, overclocking RAM can cause instability pretty quickly.

That being said, as long as you don't increase voltage past what the ram and the memory controller can handle, then overclocking it is personally safe. I've got some (sadly now discontinued) 'miracle DIMMs' from Samsung. They were $54 for 8GB of DDR3, 1600, Cas 11 sticks that ran at 1.35v. Running them at 1.5v, I'm hitting 1866, Cas 7... and that's not even pushing them as far as they can go.

 

[sethwilliam]

In that case ill get the sniper series (like the look) and underclock to 1600 just to be safe

 

[smeezekitty]

No reason to underclock. RAM is fine at its rated speed. Just avoid going over its rated speed.