How much RAM is ideal for OC'ing? And are these $500+ sticks worth it?

[FlashRZ]

Hi all, I'm new to benching and have heard that more RAM does not equal better results in many situations. I have decided to make to EVGA X299 Dark (https://goo.gl/nwoR8i) my mobo of choice for all my OC'ing initially (At least on paper. It arrives today and if it's shyte then I'll have to go back to the drawing board...) The site for this board claims "4 DIMM Quad Channel DDR4 up to 64GB 3600MHz+ Skylake-X, and 32GB 4133MHz+ Kaby Lake-X" so I can run up to 64 GB with the two chips I'll be using (Intel Core i7-7820X to learn on and an Intel Intel Core i9-7980XE to compete with, both are technically considered Skylake if I'm not mistaken)

In my normal computing life, I would have been looking for 64 GB of RAM and maybe sacrifice a little performance to get those 16gb sticks to fit in the 4 slots. But as I said earlier, if I understand correctly, that's actually not necessarily the smartest thing when it comes to benching. Can someone please let me know, what is the right amount of RAM for benching, or if it's not a static figure, what method is used to decide what's the best amount for maximum benching performance?

Also, would it be wiser to go with one of these DDR4's with a super high memory clock speed, such as the CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 4600 (https://goo.gl/3yLMrt) to try to overclock and maybe get two kits of them? Or would that be overkill/underkill and I should go with less or more, respectively.

Thank you so much, as always. I really appreciate your guys' help.

 

[BugFreak]

I'll leave the ram overclock question to the ram experts that will be along soon I'm sure. As far as the price question, no ram is worth $500 to me considering the small performance boost I would get out of it. Not to mention ram has been overpriced since Samsung took control of the ddr4 market.

 

[freeagent]

Back in 2008 or so people were paying 500+ for a good set of hypers

And you only got about 6gb or so

 

[Johan45]

Hi all, I'm new to benching and have heard that more RAM does not equal better results in many situations. I have decided to make to EVGA X299 Black (https://goo.gl/nwoR8i) my mobo of choice for all my OC'ing initially (At least on paper. It arrives today and if it's shyte then I'll have to go back to the drawing board...) The site for this board claims "4 DIMM Quad Channel DDR4 up to 64GB 3600MHz+ Skylake-X, and 32GB 4133MHz+ Kaby Lake-X" so I can run up to 64 GB with the two chips I'll be using (Intel Core i7-7820X to learn on and an Intel Intel Core i9-7980XE to compete with, both are technically considered Skylake if I'm not mistaken)

In my normal computing life, I would have been looking for 64 GB of RAM and maybe sacrifice a little performance to get those 16gb sticks to fit in the 4 slots. But as I said earlier, if I understand correctly, that's actually not necessarily the smartest thing when it comes to benching. Can someone please let me know, what is the right amount of RAM for benching, or if it's not a static figure, what method is used to decide what's the best amount for maximum benching performance?

Also, would it be wiser to go with one of these DDR4's with a super high memory clock speed, such as the CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 4600 (https://goo.gl/3yLMrt) to try to overclock and maybe get two kits of them? Or would that be overkill/underkill and I should go with less or more, respectively.

Thank you so much, as always. I really appreciate your guys' help.

First that probably wasn't the best choice in motherboard for extreme OC. Should have talked about that first I have a Dark here I would have given you a good price on or steered you toward the APEX from ASUS. For benching you'll want anything Samsung "B" based I typically go for G.Skill 8 GB sticks. If you're going for quad channel then try something in the 3600 range CL 16 or 15 these should also be able to go faster with more voltage but RAM tuning takes a lot of patience and practice.
Something like these on sale with an extra 20% off using promo code https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820232595

 

[Alaric]

Too much fast RAM can make it harder to get higher CPU clocks, too. At least I think that's the case. I know some older AMD chips were sensitive that way, but I would think that applies to varying degrees to any chip with the IMC in the CPU. (Somebody please correct me if I'm off base with modern Intels in this regard). But you can always pull a few sticks if you're going for max CPU clocks for a particular benchmark.

 

[EarthDog]

I really think we need all these threads in one as it all has to do with your overclocking adventures, lol!

 

[Johan45]

I thought the same E_D and already moved one over to the benchteam area.

First that probably wasn't the best choice in motherboard for extreme OC.

I need to correct this as well for some reason when you said black I didn't relate it to the dark and thought you meant the next teir board which is the FTW I should have followed your link.

 

[FlashRZ]

No man, that’s my bad. I just corrected it. Surprised I called it black, never done that before. Anyway, I’m glad to hear you like as I saw it yesterday for the first time and really wanted to play with it. Thing is sweet.