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need help understanding memory

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Nashiem

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Jul 1, 2014
right now I have a 16gb kit from corsair rated at 2133 the timings are 9-11-10-30. The voltage is 1.50

I was looking at another kit that is 2133 the timings are 8-10-10-27. at 1.65V

I was thinking of upgrading to 2800mhz and those timings are 12-14-14-36 at 1.65V

It sounds to me that I would get some improvement upgrading to the 2133 with the lower timings, but for some reason that kit is cheaper than my current kit by 15 dollars which I don't understand. Now would I have any gain going to the 2800 MHz memory even thought the timings are much higher.

Im not quite sure how the timings increase because of the frequency I understand there has to be some give and take, but what would be the best choice. I am usually gaming, but I would like to add more if I could just to tweak some better benchmarks.
 

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You may want to have a look though this list of reviews, they are not all on the Corsairs you have picked out but it will give you some idea of the performance difference between tight timings and high Ram Mhz.

For gaming I doubt you will see any real world improvement going to a different set of sticks. You can also try and OC the sticks you have. Knowing the setup you have would be helpful also. As far as going with really high speed sticks as the 2800 Mhz you mentioned the setup you have may not even be able to run them that fast.
 
You can probably set your memory to 9-10-10 or 8-10-10 at 1.60-1.65V so I see no point of buying that 2133 8-10-10 kit. Even if it won't run at these timings then performance will be nearly the same so in general it's waste of money.

2666+ memory kits are total mistake. Due to really relaxed timings , performance is low even though clock is high. Your 2133 kit will perform as good if not better than 2800 CL12.

In general it looks like:
1333 CL6 < 1600 CL7 < 1866 CL8 ~ 2133 CL9 ~ 2400 CL10 ~ 2600 CL11 ~ 2800 CL12
It also depends from used platform as not all memory controllers are scalling good above 2133.
 
these are the specs of my rig, they should handle anything I throw at it.
 
Yes I'm sure it would but as Woomack says your wasting your money by changing what you have for either one of those kits you listed. If you really want to improve your ram performance then try and speed up the stuff you have. Unless you're benchmarking and need every little bit of performance squeezed out just for one more point your ram is fine, you'll never notice the difference in day to day operation.
 
I know it will work but it's waste of money buying faster RAM for this platform.
X79 has really high memory bandwidth but because of quad channel memory controller, there is higher latency. To have optimal memory speed you have to set ~2133-2400 memory clock and tight timings. Best would be 2600/2666 CL10 memory but it's no longer manufactured ( for nearly 2 years ).
From new memory, all 2600+ kits are based on new, higher density IC what means you need 8GB modules to have full memory speed. New 4GB modules are single sided and depends from test, are up to 20% slower. Simply you can compare 2133 double sided modules to 2600 single sided. If your Dominators Platinum have more than a year and are double sided then you probably have there better memory chips than you can find in new kits.

I would try to overclock your current kit instead of wasting $300+ on something that won't give you any performance gain.

Try something like:
2400 10-12-12-28 1.65V
2400 9-11-11-28 1.65V
2666 10-12-12-30 1.65V
2666 11-13-13-30 1.65V
2800 12-14-14-35 1.65-1.70V

Depends if you have Samsung or Hynix IC inside it may need higher tRFC set manually like 128-148 for Samsung and 180-300 for Hynix. You can check what brand is inside looking at Rev. number -> http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68811
I doubt there is any other brand IC.

For higher clocks it will probably need to raise VCCSA and VCCIO voltages about +0.2V.

Edit:
... and Johan already said shorter version of what I wanted to say ;)
 
I oced the memory to 2400 where it was stable in prime 95, but I got lower scores than when I kept it at 2133. I set the cpu to 4.6 and the bclk to 102.2, which ups the cpu frequency to 4.7 and the memory frequency to 2180. This is stable under prime 95 and gives me the best benchmarks with Sandra.
 
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