Skylake 6700K questions

BugFreak said:

Silicone lottery has them in stock, cheaper than Newegg too.

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Thanks for the heads up, I'd never heard about Silicone Lottery.

I ordered the 4790K set up last night. From everything I've read and advice received in this thread, I think this set up will serve me well for gaming for a couple years.

You should do well for a couple years.

For a 6700k Amazon is charging £370 with free delivery in the UK, that would be ~550$ ? Newegg charges £280 + VAT + delivery (from the US) so it evens out is suppose

Janus67 said:

For all intents and purposes in this case RAM is RAM, it is 'certified' to run on that platform but it will run just fine on Z170.

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I strongly disagree with this, some X99-era RAM doesn't even post with Z170's, especially 4 sticks, most don't XMP

If RAM isn't damaged then it will post on any X99 or Z170 motherboards. All memory kits have SPD profile which is compatible with JEDEC standards so all have to work on all motherboards. XMP profiles are additional profiles and are not always working. XMP profiles designed for X99 motherboards have different sub-timing tables so all depends from Z170 motherboard if it's going to read it right or not.

From my tests, DDR4 kits designed for X99 from Crucial, G.Skill ( Hynix based only ), EVGA ( all are Hynix ) and Kingston ( all are Hynix ) were working at XMP settings on Z170 motherboards. Z170 kits from Geil, G.Skill ( all IC ) and Kingston were working on Z170 and X99 without issues.
Issues are mainly appearing above DDR4-3000 and on Samsung based kits designed for X99 boards.

kaans said:

I strongly disagree with this, some X99-era RAM doesn't even post with Z170's, especially 4 sticks, most don't XMP

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I'd had two different x99 sets run just fine on z170...first was some Kingston 4x4GB ddr4 3k and some rip jaws at the same speed.. both were fine with xmp profiles. Though one had an issue on my PRE release board

I read couple of different horror stories with Corsair Vengeance-like RAM, that's where my reasoning comes from, it might be because everyone defaults to Corsair budget RAM's, or it might be because Corsair's are more unstable

They usually say 3 sticks / 1 sticks work, so worst case scenario, it would probably post enough for future BIOS improvements that will close the gaps

Still, there is no reason to buy Ripjaws4's when Ripjaws5's are available that claim being designed for Z170 specifically, life is too short with these kind of risks, impo

kaans said:

I read couple of different horror stories with Corsair Vengeance-like RAM, that's where my reasoning comes from, it might be because everyone defaults to Corsair budget RAM's, or it might be because Corsair's are more unstable

They usually say 3 sticks / 1 sticks work, so worst case scenario, it would probably post enough for future BIOS improvements that will close the gaps

Still, there is no reason to buy Ripjaws4's when Ripjaws5's are available that claim being designed for Z170 specifically, life is too short with these kind of risks, impo

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Again, not sure it is as rampant a problem as you make it out to be...

Sure, get something that is 'made' for it... but, ram is ram in the VAST majority of cases.

I've been having various issues with Z170 since day1, and every google search / product review returns similar issues

Except from the 4 stick issues, nothing conclusive to prove X99-era RAM's doesn't work for Z170 tho

Currently, it seems, many boards can't XMP many RAM, I assume at one point, manufacturers are gonna fix these issues, at that point, I think Z170 rams will be covered, it would be a big leap of faith for me to assume the same for X99, as most aren't even included in the QVL lists

I can gooe search ANY set of ram on ANY platform and run into multiple hits...

Again, outside of a PRE release board, I have had zero issues with ram posting xmp settings. Are there issues out there, sure. Many...I would have to strongly disagree with that assertion. For the most part, ram 'made for' z170 is working just fine. Any outlier issues should be corrected with bios updates. But to speak like it is a major issue.... not something I would do.

Most memory issues on Z170 boards are related to Gigabyte/Corsair combo. In most cases it's because Corsair was selling kits designed for X99 what wasn't described in stores and Gigabyte on the other hand was not improving their BIOSes. Now I see that support is providing beta BIOS to fix some compatibility issues ... 2 months after premiere. Not all boards will have full support as Gigabyte is often moving to rev.2+ instead of fixing issues with rev.1 boards.
That said, I had no issues with G.Skill, Crucial, Kingston, EVGA and Geil memory kits on ASUS or MSI Z170 motherboards. Most of these kits were designed for X99. The only issue was with Samsung based Ripjaws 4 kit which was working but I had to set timings manually. In total I tested about 12 DDR4 kits on 3 Z170 motherboards.

Have you bought your cooler yet?

Let me know what you think! If it gives you trouble, check out the one in my rig. It is an air cooler, but It looks sweet, and cools ridiculously well, In some cases, outperforming a much more expensive Noctua DH-15.