Just purchased new ram. Any advice on timings?

I have a set of G.Skill 6GiB Ripjaws ram currently in my i7 system. I originally planned on adding a 2nd set of the same ram, but NewEgg has a sale going on today of G.Skill 12GiB Ripjaws for $5 less. Timings are very close to the 6GiB set, and for $5 less, I'm getting double the ram, so I'll have 18Gib of ram in the system. I'll be able to have a much larger ram disk then I planned, maybe even use it for an entire game install.

Anyway, currently I have the 6GiB set running @ 1440MHz, 8-8-8-24 2T CL8 @ 1.6V. It runs perfectly fine at those settings @ 1600MHz, I just never bothered to play around with the timings or voltage after attempting to o/c the CPU to 4GHz.

That 12GiB set has slightly higher timings and lower voltage requirements; 9-9-9-24 CL9 @ 1.5V.

I don't think I'd lose much setting all the ram to the 12GiB settings, especially considering I'm only running it @ 1440MHz compared to 1600, but what about the voltage for the total amount of ram installed? Think I'll need to fiddle with settings much, or can I just 9-9-9-24 CL9 (2T?) 1.6V it all and just be done with it?

they should run at 1t cmd @ 1600. My experience with the 9-9-9 ripjaws is that they dont tighten up much, may be able to run at 9-9-8 @ 1600. With you nehalem chip you may have to give the cpu some more vtt to get 12gb stable, but you will just have to mount it up and see what it needs.

Mixing ram.. generally not a good idea. You have to just see if it works. You are going to have to run 9-9-9-24 and 1.65 would be my guess. Not to mention due to the large amount of ram, you will need to use more Vtt to get it stable.

Personally, if you know you do not need 18GB, then just use the 12 and sell the 6.

I was thinking he was just going to order a 6x2gb kit and call it a day at 12gb.

Sorry, maybe Im still sleeping here. But as I read it, he already owns a 3x2GB kit. He wants to get a 3x4GB kit (=18GB total between the kits).

EarthDog said:

Sorry, maybe Im still sleeping here. But as I read it, he already owns a 3x2GiB kit. He wants to get a 3x4GiB kit (=18GiB total between the kits).

Click to expand...

Correct. It was going to be 6x2GiB sticks total for 12GiB of ram, but with the price of the 3x4GiB set, its going to be 18GiB total. I could easily put the 12GiB (or more) extra to use as a ram drive for my needs.

I figured the Vtt might have to go up higher, but wasn't sure if it could all run with 1.6V to the ram.

And although the ram sets are rated for 1600MHz, the system is currently @ only 1440MHz for the ram. The next multiple would take the ram past 1600MHz, and I truthfully don't want to bother with trying to figure out what settings to use for 100% stability. I'd rather keep it @ 1440MHz and stock (or close to stock) timings and be done with it. What little extra performance I could eek out of the ram with tighter timings/higher speeds with hours of testing, won't be worth it to me.

I also wouldnt expect the kit with 9-9-9 timings to make the same timings as the kit with 8-8-8. And note that with mixing kits there may be some of the sub timings that are way different between the 2 kits and cause issues.

And likely neither is ramdisk or 18GB of ram...

Personally, I would sell what you have and just use the 12GB set.

So, 18GiB indeed does work, even with different ram sticks. I just manually set all the timings to the highest XMP profile settings (which was the 12GiB set) and Windows booted up just fine.

Now I just wish I had Win 7 Pro so I could use all 18GiB, and not just 16GiB.