What RAM works better for my P5Q3 Deluxe?

[oldschoold]

My old mo/bo took a dump leaving me with no choice but to buy another mo/bo because my wife would kill me if I got a Sandybridge 2600K rig ... I got a P5Q3 Deluxe on e-bay and I'd like to know what works best for RAM? Mo/bo can do 16Gb! I assume filling all slots up (4X4) would be too much for the controller. Sticking with 1600Hz, would 4X2Gb work better than 2X4Gb or 2X2Gb? I'd like as much as I can get. Now I know 2 sticks overclock better than 4, but I'd like to "TRY" for stability and performance @ stock settings for once. Though at the same time, I don't want to shut the door on overclocking the RAM completely. If it works better with 2 dimms and I overclock it, will I have to use 2Gb sticks? And does 4Gb dimms work well at all? Asus' QVL doesn't help much cause they show no 4Gb dimms on the list but specs show the board handles 16Gb? They say it can handle 16Gb but prolly @ a low freq. Also, the RAM listed on the QVL is all around 1.9V. I'm told that 1.65V XMP will work for this board. So, what y'all think?

Asus P5Q3 Deluxe WiFi
Core 2 Quad Q9550
Zalman CNPS9500
EVGA GTX 460
24" Asus 1920 X 1200
60Gb OCZ Agility SSD
2 WD Caviar Black 1TB's in RAID 0

 

[SMOKEU]

This begs the question: how much RAM do you REALLY need? 4GB is plenty for most people, when I upgraded to 8GB I noticed NO difference AT ALL in terms of performance, except for when I was running VMs.

You are best of sticking with 2 sticks rather than 4 sticks of RAM to reduce the stress on the IMC, but there is no reason why you can't run 4 sticks of RAM nice and stable if you're not going for a super mega overclock.

If your board supports 16GB of RAM, and it has 4 memory slots then 4GB X 4 = 16GB. As for voltages you're normally best of sticking with what the motherboard manufacturer recommends. Sometimes the RAM manufacturer will also have a list on their website telling you what boards they have tested their RAM with.

 

[oldschoold]

Oh cool! Thank you so much for the reply! When you upgraded to 8GB, did you add the other 4 GB to the other 2 Dimm slots or upgrade to a 2X4GB set up? And yes, Asus says 1.9V but Corsair support says 1.65 will work fine but the newer memory they have to offer for me (as far as I know) wasn't tested on the type of mo/bo I have but when I ask about some differant types of 1.65V RAM (Dominator low latency vs XMS3 9,9,9,27) they say it works. If that's the case, I'll Buy Dominator 2X4GB. I do have a set of 2X4GB OCZ 1600 7,7,6,24 1.9V that the ASUS says will work. Just a little hard to decide if I should get the Dominator 2X4GB and sell the OCZ 2X2GB, or stick with the OCZ. Dominators are XMP and the OCZ is not. The board accepts XMP ready DIMM's so 8GB XMP sounds slightly better but I could also overclock the crap out of OCZ

 

[SMOKEU]

I sold my 2X2GB kit and bought 2X4GB. I wouldn't really worry too much about RAM timings, as long as your motherboard manufacturer recommends that RAM, or if the RAM manufacturer says it will work on that board then you should be fine. You won't notice any difference in terms of performance with different timings with ordinary day to day use. Benchmarks are a different story.

Go for whichever RAM is cheapest as long as your motherboard supports it.

 

[oldschoold]

Sounds like some great info. I'll stick to the OCZ kit I have already. My mo/bo should be in tomorrow, I'm going for a moderate CPU OC for now. I see in other forums that the CPU I have doesn't do well @ 3.8 and above (stock @ 1333 is 2.83 Q9550 C1) (1600FSB/1600RAM). I play Crysis 2 and I woder if I'll have to bump up my RAM to get some better FPM. I'm thinking that my attempts to raise it won't give me much results. And I wonder if it would work well @ 1600FSB/1800RAM or higher RAM and if the odd ratio is a problem. I'm a little sceptical of a RAM OC but willing to give it a try if I notice a good performance increase in playing games and if it passes memtest and doesn't crash during prime

 

[SMOKEU]

I've played around with RAM speeds and timings, and they give NO difference, AT ALL when it comes to gaming. Unless your RAM is really and unstable, there will be no difference in your gaming frame rates between cheap and expensive RAM. As long as you have enough RAM, speeds and timings don't really matter for gaming. Even cheap RAM is fast enough for gaming, although I don't buy cheap generic stuff because I want quality. OCZ RAM is fine.

 

[oldschoold]

Yes, I have it in and it is set @ 1601 7,7,6,24. It is stable now and I'm impressed. I did update the BIOS to the latest rev. but it wouldn't boot so I went back to the 3rd to last (1901 I think) rev. and had no problems since. Now I am trying to figure out a few things. Running FSB @1600 was very easy and very stable, but I have my multiplier set @ 8.5 but it is cut down to 6 @ idle #1. I had a 780i mo/bo before and the settings are much differant. I can't remember what I have to disable to stop that from happening. #2, the command rate is running @ 2t and it should be @ 1t, there is nothing in the BIOS that says command rate or CR. And #3, I can't figure out how to unlock the FSB to RAM ratio. If I raise the FSB, it raises RAM

 

[oldschoold]

All in all, not too bad! I like havin my OS on an SSD and I have plenty of storage. Runs really smooth
Asus P5Q3 Deluxe WiFi
Core 2 Quad Q9550 OC'd to 3.4GHz
2X2GB OCZ 1600MHz [email protected]
Zalman CNPS9500
EVGA GTX 460
24" Asus 1920 X 1200
60Gb OCZ Agility SSD
2 WD Caviar Black 1TB's in RAID 0

 

[oldschoold]

figured out multiplier issue. C1E disabled... Ran Prime95, tis stable @ 64C on O2 but Vcore drops from 1.264V to 1.208V, pretty much huh?

Vcore 1.3V
Termination 1.22V
PLL 1.5V
NB 1.32V
SB 1.4V

But I gotta say, MIGHTY STABLE!!! Crysis is virtually flawless and doesn't chop while being fired at and turning at the same time. 7.4 CPU and Memory index, 7.6 GPU index, 7.5 drives index