So I have some plans going on for either getting more ram with the same speed or more RAM with faster speeds.
PLAN A: I have 8GB of DDR4 RAM 2666MHz of Kingston Hyper X. I could get 2 8GB sticks and add upto 24GB of RAM with the same speeds and same brand.
PLAN B: I can return the current ram (full refund until Jan.31) while the 16GB GALAX HOF 3200MHz RAM starts to ship. http://galaxstore.net/GALAX-HOF-DDR4-3200-MEMORY-16G（8G2）_p_117.html Which costs $100 plus a $11 shipping fee. Returning the current ram would probably give me $70 back. Typically, I would be spending about $41.
Would you help me lessen the stress on this? Thanks!
I'd recommend more rather than faster. The speed makes for a minimal improvement unless you have very specific needs. Size on the other hand enables you to run an epic ram drive. With the right settings that can greatly improve loading times for games or other programs.
And if you manage to get even more than 24 GiB you could make my RAM dream reality. A gaming VM running completely from ram with GPU passthrough..... (dreamy sigh)
In my personal opinion, If you don't know what you need faster RAM for, you don't need it (unless you have the slowest one ever made). More ram can be used for virtual machines, caching, ramdisks, games will benefit from having more than 8gb.
I say go for the faster option. Why? because the faster option hits the sweet spot of 16gb, I can easily use 8 but without a VM I've never touched 16. I think its just the right amount without being too much but that depends on what you're doing with it I guess. Another reason is with the return the 16gb option is actually the cheaper option. I wouldnt do it for the speed gains, but for the price/performance ratio you're getting.
Also if you go with 24gb odds are if you want to go to 32 you will have that 8gb kit laying around...next thing you know you're justifying buying another board and cpu because its "going to waste". Okay maybe I'm pushing it a bit but my first point stands.
How does your motherboard handle an odd # of DIMMs? My computer might be a bit odd in this regard, but the manual says something about using pairs of DIMMs to get maximum bandwidth.
That's talking about utilizing dual channel memory. The performance benefit that offers is negligible in most all applications and for the most part is a non-issue. It's very possible to be running 3 dimms in a mb with 4 dimm slots, you just won't get the ever-so-slight benefit of dual channel.
Faster memory: The faster 3200 MHz vs 2666 is like 20% theoretical improvement that will not affect almost anything at all (for normal home usage). In most cases any substantial speed improvement of CPU is already covered by cache in the CPU (again for normal home usage and taking into account relatively small improvement of memory - 20%). So that 20% improvement in reality happens only in 5% (I'm totally guessing this value) cases where CPU need to read some data. So statistically improvement is like 0.20 * 0.05 = 1%. Only more memory intensive tasks would get more from that 20% increase. And by more memory intensive I mean not just using more memory, but constantly reading or/and writing a lot of it.
More memory: You might feel system more responsive (thanks to larger file caches). E.g. re-loading save game would read less from the SSD/HDD (I assume that game re-reads some texture files not only a save file). But that benefit has its limit, I would say that you not need more than twice memory than active programs use.
Dual channel: Realistically benefit exists only when you have many threads massively reading/writing from/to a lot of memory. I also think that dual channel mode will not be enabled with odd number of 3 sticks.
So the dual channel mode would work only for those 16 GB (8GB x2). But combined benefit from 20% faster speed and dual channel for home usage would be..... 2% (again normal home usage).
However, lower latency vs higher clock rate? I lean toward lower latency.
Generally yes, however... (please take into account that bellow is my understanding of technology, and based on that I used to chose right memory for me, but I might be a little wrong, or explain it horribly): Latency (as a delay between CPU memory controller requesting a read from random cell - as completely unrelated from the previous request) could be represented in two ways (generally): - A time in nanoseconds, - or number of cycles. And, time=1/frequency *cycles One regard - frequency as the real frequency of the memory bus, not the DDR rating, and not the memory bandwidth rating (e.g. DDR4-2666 has real frequency of 1333MHz). When you buy in shop, you almost always have the number of cycles e.g. CL10.
So DDR4 3000 CL15 has almost similar nanosecond (10.31ns) latency as DDR4 2133 CL11 (10ns). For those two the real latency is basically the same. If you would have those two with the same price - DDR4 3000 CL15 would be slightly faster on non-random reads (yet again. in normal home use case benefit is probably marginal).
Definitely take the more RAM option. It will make more of a difference than faster RAM.
Although I will also maybe suggest doing neither. Maybe invest the money you would put into the RAM into another component or upgrade something else. Unless you are doing some professional work, you won't need more than 16GB for a gaming machine.
All due respect, when it comes to ram everyone is kind of vague even if they get technical, I'd like to read or watch a video or see a chart where someone explains:
What are the real improvements that can be measured in non-synthetic scenarios for home and/or enterprise users just for different latencies. What are the real improvements that can be measured in non-synthetic scenarios for home and/or enterprise users just for different speeds. What are the real improvements that can be measured in non-synthetic scenarios for home and/or enterprise users for higher speed but higher latency. What are the real improvements that can be measured in non-synthetic scenarios for home and/or enterprise users for lower latency but lower speed. What are the real improvements that can be measured in non-synthetic scenarios for home and/or enterprise users for higher speed and lower latency.
As for mainstream-enterprise, there are usually just single speed memory choices e.g. for DDR4 it is 2133 (recently I think I saw 2400). Not sure if there are even huge latency differences for each of the speeds. I guess its because of the stability and power consumption concerns. Honestly, I never seen any special deliberations for memory for general enterprise systems except of how much of it is needed (usually where are some calculations done for the mass storage). Its because other software/hardware architecture considerations and horizontal scalability is taken first into account.
DDR4 still has room to grow, in terms of IC density, efficiency, and speed. Buying RAM for speed now is sort of a silly proposition; better to spend on value..
Lets look at it this way: 10 years ago, I spent ~$300 for 4x 1GB of Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800MHz memory. Had I waited a couple of years(around 2009), I could have purchased 4x 2GB of 1033MHz, for less than half that cost..
If I were to do it all over again, I'd just buy what fits the bill now, then upgrade when it is either economical to do so, or the DIMM tech has matured to the point where companies have shifted their focus to next generation stuff. I can guarantee you that in a few years, you'll look at what you bought, and realize that same $125 could have outfitted you with 4x16GB of 4GHz ULV RAM..
That said, spending an extra $40 for the GALAX memory isnt a bad idea. It'll still cost you way less than the Plan A route, and 16GB is more than enough for gaming, and light-medium productivity work
Do you have a typical workload you can run tests on? If so, do it a few times and then drop the ram speed incrementally and test again.
If you don't work on that machine (just browse or game or whatever), then faster ram won't really do any good. If I were you, I'd consider the cost only if I knew I needed it. If you're still set on it, I say upgrade in the future. With platforms like z270 and am4 using DDR4, prices will plummet soon enough for the "slower" speeds.