BlueGuy
member
Joined: 30/04/03
Posts: 77
Loc: Stockholm, Sweden
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I need some advice for picking DDR3 memory for my planned Core i7 system based on Asus P6TD Deluxe. I have checked the Qualified Vendor List but I'm not getting any wiser:
Questions: DDR3 1333 seems to be the basic "no frills" speed, right? I'm
not interested in investing time or money to overclock, so should I stay there? Or is it
easy & idiot safe to go DDR3 1600 or beyond?
Grateful for any insights!
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Pete Kaine
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Joined: 10/07/03
Posts: 789
Loc: Manchester
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The chipset's offical rating is upto 1600Mhz so anything upto that will be fine. 1800Mhz
from the brands I've tested seems fine but I've seen some awkwardness in tweaking with
some of the 2000Mhz stuff floating around. Proberly wouldn't affect a box at stock speeds,
but then the performance to price ratio of 2000Mhz proberly isn't worthwhile for what your
paying for (the same could proberly be said for most 1800Mhz stuff, but I've not looked at
prices recently).
1600Mhz is your safe one through and 1333Mhz is fine all in
all. Look at the price difference and decide if you consider it worth paying for the
extra.
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www.scan.co.uk
3XS Audio Systems
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tex
member
Joined: 01/04/03
Posts: 545
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I have that board.
If you get 12gig of the Corsair Dominator 1600, which is
very good quality but has just gone up in price, then you may also need a cooler fan
assembly for it. 6gig should be fine without.
Prices change all the time. Good place
to look is the Scan; Today Only pages or other companys' similar pages where discounts may
be had.
I'd go for the 1600 speed if you use a lot of processor hungry tasks. Lots of
tracks/midi/FX etc.
--------------------
If you really want to offend someone.
Tell them the truth. Would I lie to you?
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Pete Kaine
member
Joined: 10/07/03
Posts: 789
Loc: Manchester
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If you do go that direction then try and avoid using the fan. It's the noisiest peice of
*%(%*^ to start with and then a ball baring normally breaks in a few weeks making it
whiney as hell.
The Dominator stuff is good but it is designed for
overclocking. You can proberly get away with running it sans fans anyhow if your not
pushing it, but on the plus side it's got a 10 year warrenty on it so if you did per
chance fail to use the fan and it burnt out in a few years time you've not really lost
anything as you can still return it for some new stuff.
Personally I'd go for
the lower end stuff from them mind. The Twin X is more than acceptable for day to day use
and it's cheaper as well as still having the same warrenty.
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www.scan.co.uk
3XS Audio Systems
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tex
member
Joined: 01/04/03
Posts: 545
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That's good to know. I did get the Dominator while it's price was low. I must be lucky
with the fan as it's quite quiet but I did seem to have some instabilities without it that
seemed cured when it was installed. Maybe it's cooling something else as well.
Ha! I'm sure I heard the slightest whine as I typed the above. Should type quietly so it
can't hear me...
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If you really want to offend someone.
Tell them the truth. Would I lie to you?
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Pete Kaine
member
Joined: 10/07/03
Posts: 789
Loc: Manchester
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Sounds like you have been tex. I'm envious as the's one sat in a machine within arms reach
now mocking me with it's nails down a blackboard tone 
Good work on getting a decent price through. It's totally worth it if the price is
right, but the ram market does seem to be in a bit of a upward motion price wise at the
moment 
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www.scan.co.uk
3XS Audio Systems
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BlueGuy
member
Joined: 30/04/03
Posts: 77
Loc: Stockholm, Sweden
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Thanks for your replies guys!
1600 Mhz sounds good then, but I can't find the
Corsair stuff in the Qualified Vendor List for the Asus P6TD Deluxe (link in my first
post)?
I found this memory - OCZ Gold XTC 6144MB DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz - in
the QVL list and also in stock in a local computer shop, would that do the trick?
It would be nice to be able to upgrade to 12 GB in the future (without a fan!). But the
manual and the QVL both seem to say that you can't run 6 memory modules @ 1600. The
manual: "Due to Intel spec definition, XMP DIMMs and DDR3-1600 are supported for one
DIMM per channel only."
And the QVL has the following spec only up to
1333 Mhz speed:
"Supports six (6) modules inserted into both the
orange slots and the black slots as two set of Triple-channel memory
configuration."
Am I trusting the QVL list and manuals too much? I just
don't want to take any risks. But then again, maybe I wont upgrade to 12 GB anyway.
Thanks!
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_Nuno_
Joined: 20/05/06
Posts: 731
Loc: Cork, Ireland
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Quote BlueGuy:
Thanks for your
replies guys!
1600 Mhz sounds good then, but I can't find the Corsair stuff in
the Qualified Vendor List for the Asus P6TD Deluxe (link in my first post)?
I just downloaded the list for the P6T SE
from their website and the Corsair stuff is there.
Quote BlueGuy:
I found this memory - OCZ Gold XTC 6144MB
DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz - in the QVL list and also in stock in a local computer shop, would
that do the trick?
It would be nice to be able to upgrade to 12 GB in the
future (without a fan!). But the manual and the QVL both seem to say that you can't run 6
memory modules @ 1600. The manual: "Due to Intel spec definition, XMP DIMMs and
DDR3-1600 are supported for one DIMM per channel only."
And the QVL has
the following spec only up to 1333 Mhz speed:
"Supports six (6)
modules inserted into both the orange slots and the black slots as two set of
Triple-channel memory configuration."
Am I trusting the QVL list and
manuals too much? I just don't want to take any risks. But then again, maybe I wont
upgrade to 12 GB anyway.
Thanks!
It seems to be the case. I am upgrading my computer this week and
I am going with 1333 due to this. I plan on going 64 bit eventually and want to be able to
use the full 6 DIMMS.
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BlueGuy
member
Joined: 30/04/03
Posts: 77
Loc: Stockholm, Sweden
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Quote _Nuno_:
I just
downloaded the list for the P6T SE from their website and the Corsair stuff is there.
Ah, yes the memory
compatibility must be different for the P6TSE and P6TD Deluxe boards.
Quote _Nuno_:
It seems to
be the case. I am upgrading my computer this week and I am going with 1333 due to this. I
plan on going 64 bit eventually and want to be able to use the full 6 DIMMS.
Hm. Yeah maybe it would be alright to
go 1333 after all. I suppose the difference in speed shouldn't be that
aggravating...
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_Nuno_
Joined: 20/05/06
Posts: 731
Loc: Cork, Ireland
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Quote BlueGuy:
I just
downloaded the list for the P6T SE from their website and the Corsair stuff is there.
Ah, yes the memory
compatibility must be different for the
Or it could be just because the SE is newer and the list is more
up to date.
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Pete Kaine
member
Joined: 10/07/03
Posts: 789
Loc: Manchester
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Quote _Nuno_:
Or it could
be just because the SE is newer and the list is more up to date.
Aye.
--------------------
www.scan.co.uk
3XS Audio Systems
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BlueGuy
member
Joined: 30/04/03
Posts: 77
Loc: Stockholm, Sweden
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Quote Pete Kaine:
Quote _Nuno_:
Or it could
be just because the SE is newer and the list is more up to date.
Aye.
Interesting. So how would I know which QVLs are applicable to a
specific motherboard? All with the same chipset?
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Pete Kaine
member
Joined: 10/07/03
Posts: 789
Loc: Manchester
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Depending on the manufactor most of them will keep an updated list on their website. Bare
in mind that will only cover partners and you will find that the vast majority of
comerical boards will work fine with the vast majority of memory brands.
The
only times I find myself consulting a QVL is if I'm working with a server board or doing a
stupid overclock on a normal board which needs the best working combination in place.
--------------------
www.scan.co.uk
3XS Audio Systems
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BlueGuy
member
Joined: 30/04/03
Posts: 77
Loc: Stockholm, Sweden
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Thanks for the info.
What do you think of the "can't run 6 DIMMs at 1600
Mhz"-limitation mentioned above? Is it basically just a disclaimer?
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Pete Kaine
member
Joined: 10/07/03
Posts: 789
Loc: Manchester
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I've had a chat with the build team to confirm and it looks like a case of covering
themselfs. If you add 6 dimms of highspeed memory overclocking get's progressivly harder
the faster the memory and the more sticks you add. From personal testing here 6 sticks of
2000Mhz on a P6T board resticts you to 4.3G on the processor in overclocking where 1800Mhz
restricts you to 4.6G (give or take your ability to tweak). Not really the memorys fault
but comes down to the boards subsystem design and how it handles the bandwidth.
At stock you shouldn't see a problem through. It appears that I was wrong on the
prior statement that 1600Mhz is part of the spec, as it is indeed 1333Mhz but 1600Mhz is
stable in pretty much all cases we can think of here no matter what the number of sticks
(as is 1800Mhz with decent memory).
I'd say for safety that you should choose
a brand off the QVL as the chances are the later bioses that have been written will still
have been worked upon on the same brand, but I wouldn't go overboard in tracking down
exact memory model numbers. The QVL list only really applys to the revision that it
qualified on and if the list is more than 3 months old the's pretty much zero chance of
you getting the exact revision anyway (Example: Corsair 1333 twin x I have in front of me
is on Rev.4.3). The revision number changes each time they change silicon batch and as
they don't make their own but buy it in the chances of it even being from the same factory
as the qualified stuff isn't exactly high.
So to sum up. From our experiance
1333Mhz will work. 1600Mhz if decent memory should work perfectly fine but make sure you
set the voltages up in the bios before inserting it, if you can. Also worth updating the
bios before going for it as some memory support may have been added on the latest few that
may make the whole job far more easy.
If you can't set up voltages before
inserting but it'll run fine on 3 (or even 1) stick then post with the minimum amount of
sticks and then set your memory voltage to the recomended amount. I think it'll be 1.65v
on the sticks your going for but the board may default to 1.5v. If that's the case it may
not post with all 6 but will run fine with 3 just to let you set up 
--------------------
www.scan.co.uk
3XS Audio Systems
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daposti
member
Joined: 11/03/03
Posts: 461
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I like the look of these babies myself..
http://www.dabs.com/products/ocz-technology-ddr3-6gb--3x2--platinum-1333mh
z-5D0K.html?refs=4294951079-4294951974
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BlueGuy
member
Joined: 30/04/03
Posts: 77
Loc: Stockholm, Sweden
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Very interesting info, big thanks Pete! I've no experience in having to manually adjust
DIMM voltages, so I'll keep your instructions in mind.
I learned some stuff
from this article, maybe others can too (there's a lot of educating text in there):
DDR3-1333 Speed and Latency Shootout
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr3-1333-speed-latency-shootout,1754.
html
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