RAM Recommendations For Sandy Bridge-e

[dstryrwiz]

I'm still working on setting up a good Sandy Bridge-e machine and would like to know what you all can suggest in regards to some good RAM for this machine. Is there a big difference for Pro Tools work getting much higher end RAM, especially now that it can be nearly fully tapped into (such as 2133 MHz RAM), or is the additional speed useless and just a waste of money? I will be getting the lower of the 2 Sandy Bridge-e chips, and I will be overclocking it, and possibly the RAM as well. I've heard that overclocking the RAM may not help at all, but in reality, does it? Thank you and I look forward to hearing everyone's recommendations.

[twdwyer]

I'd be interested in the particulars of your build as I'm moving to PT HD Native and will need to build a new box soon. Watching with interest!
Tommy

[TCM]

Originally Posted by dstryrwiz

I'm still working on setting up a good Sandy Bridge-e machine and would like to know what you all can suggest in regards to some good RAM for this machine. Is there a big difference for Pro Tools work getting much higher end RAM, especially now that it can be nearly fully tapped into (such as 2133 MHz RAM), or is the additional speed useless and just a waste of money? I will be getting the lower of the 2 Sandy Bridge-e chips, and I will be overclocking it, and possibly the RAM as well. I've heard that overclocking the RAM may not help at all, but in reality, does it? Thank you and I look forward to hearing everyone's recommendations.

It is pretty tough to give any recommendation when the new quad channel kits just hit the market. Maybe you have to be a trailblazer.
I only know that there are kits available from Corsair and GSkill. Other manufacturers will follow suit.

[sunburst79]

Originally Posted by TCM

It is pretty tough to give any recommendation when the new quad channel kits just hit the market. Maybe you have to be a trailblazer.
I only know that there are kits available from Corsair and GSkill. Other manufacturers will follow suit.

Something to look into..... I have been reading with interest since I had planned on building SNB-E myself. One the reviews I read mentioned that when using all 8 RAM slots (which you really should do the get full bandwidth) the speed drops to DDR3 1333. It wasn't clear if that was a brick wall in the IMC (integrated memory controller) or simply the default for SPD. I would want to know more about that before ordering RAM. If thats the case I would be looking for DDR3 1333-1600 with lower latency.

[dstryrwiz]

Originally Posted by TCM

It is pretty tough to give any recommendation when the new quad channel kits just hit the market. Maybe you have to be a trailblazer.
I only know that there are kits available from Corsair and GSkill. Other manufacturers will follow suit.

Technically all the usuals (Corsair, G Skill, Kingston, Mushkin Enhanced, Patriot, etc) have RAM being released for Sandy Bridge-e, however it's just being posted slowly. It's the same thing with the motherboards, as ASRock and many other manufacturers have motherboards that have yet to be posted, including some of the more anticipated ones. I expect to be a trailblazer in a way, however these new chips are for the most part built off of already existing chip series, just expanding on them, so I guess technically I'm more asking in terms of the reputations of the prior series, as although I understand there may be surprises, that at least will help me possibly in eliminating some options (such as if one of the brands is notorious for having poor quality, or if they are known for having excellent quality, as well as if the series these cards are based off is good, then it makes them easier to trust).

[sunburst79]

From Anandtech

"Occupying the die area where the GPU would normally be is SNB-E's new memory controller. While its predecessor featured a fairly standard dual-channel DDR3 memory controller, SNB-E features four 64-bit DDR3 memory channels. With a single DDR3 DIMM per channel Intel officially supports speeds of up to DDR3-1600, with two DIMMs per channel the max official speed drops to 1333MHz."

And

"With a quad-channel memory controller you'll have to install DIMMs four at a time to take full advantage of the bandwidth. In response, memory vendors are selling 4 and 8 DIMM kits specifically for SNB-E systems. Most high-end X79 motherboards feature 8 DIMM slots (2 per channel). Just as with previous architectures, installing fewer DIMMs is possible, it simply reduces the peak available memory bandwidth."

I would wait a week or two and see what other reviews get posted and what speed the RAM is running when all the slots are populated. And what timings it prefers.

Full article Here

[kazuomik]

If you want to use full 8 memory slots such as 8x8GB=64GB with higher speed, memory rank matters, so you may need to choose Single Rank memory modules, but some motherboard maker like ASUS seems to officially support Dual Rank memories.

[dstryrwiz]

Originally Posted by kazuomik

If you want to use full 8 memory slots such as 8x8GB=64GB with higher speed, memory rank matters, so you may need to choose Single Rank memory modules, but some motherboard maker like ASUS seems to officially support Dual Rank memories.

I intend to use all 8 channels, most probably getting 2 4x4 kits, or an 8x4 kit if it's available (whichever's cheaper), so I don't know how concerned I am about that. I've been looking into getting 8 4GB cards at 2133MHz probably.

[dstryrwiz]

Originally Posted by sunburst79

From Anandtech

"Occupying the die area where the GPU would normally be is SNB-E's new memory controller. While its predecessor featured a fairly standard dual-channel DDR3 memory controller, SNB-E features four 64-bit DDR3 memory channels. With a single DDR3 DIMM per channel Intel officially supports speeds of up to DDR3-1600, with two DIMMs per channel the max official speed drops to 1333MHz."

And

"With a quad-channel memory controller you'll have to install DIMMs four at a time to take full advantage of the bandwidth. In response, memory vendors are selling 4 and 8 DIMM kits specifically for SNB-E systems. Most high-end X79 motherboards feature 8 DIMM slots (2 per channel). Just as with previous architectures, installing fewer DIMMs is possible, it simply reduces the peak available memory bandwidth."

I would wait a week or two and see what other reviews get posted and what speed the RAM is running when all the slots are populated. And what timings it prefers.

Full article Here

Technically going with 4 over 8 might be "better", but you will either lose out on RAM or on money. Many of the boards being released allow you to easily overclock these systems, whether or not you know how to overclock or not, and I have seen various reports of people being able to push the RAM way higher than what Intel "officially" supports. I believe I did read some reviewers using 8 DIMMs were in fact able to get speeds of around 2133-2400 MHz for the RAM, so I wouldn't be entirely concerned with it. With this series, it's intended to be overclocked, and it overclocks incredibly nicely (I'm seeing reports of manual overclocks of the K chip getting around 4.9GHz over the stock 3.2, and preset overclocks using the motherboard utilities from different manufacturers getting around 4.5GHz, so it's definitely worth doing), however with these chips, water cooling is sort of mandatory at this point. I guess I'll keep watching Newegg over the coming days as they slowly post the cards. I'm really hoping everything gets posted in time for Cyber Monday with the Sandy Bridge-e components possibly getting marked down (from maybe a sitewide sale for example), or from some other site having them marked down.

[sunburst79]

I'm waiting for Microcenter to offer them at 499.00