RAM Upgrade for ASRock Z77 Extreme6 + i7-3770K

[PP Mguire]

Last time I looked the Tridents had higher timings and were more expensive. They overclock well, but in this case it isn't necessary at all.

Edit: Another thing to take into consideration is DDR4 is right around the corner which will make DDR3 prices shoot up in a year or so. If you get 4 sticks you have no room for upgrade. If the next gen games take it up a notch with 64bit support you might need to grab another 16GB kit.

 

[Guttzu]

Wouldn't you have to buy new
Sticks anyway since the DDR3 wouldn't work with the DDR4? Could you expand a little on what the games might require/need? Sorry on my phone at work I can't research lol... What do you suggest then for right now? I really wanna get this new build finished and just need the RAM...

 

[PP Mguire]

No, I mean if you buy 4 sticks all of your DIMMs will be full so you can't expand IF you need to. If you buy a 2 stick kit now, you can expand later. As always like DDR2 to DDR3, when DDR4 is released next year or 2015 DDR3 prices will start to go up quickly. Next gen games are going to land end of this year and next year. So what I'm saying is if you need to upgrade having to buy 2 sticks (any pair 2133) rather than a bigger kit makes more sense. It's another reason why I tell people not to fill their DIMMs.

This is a theory. I really don't think next gen games are going to use more than 8GB of RAM but who knows. Currently there is no game that will use more than 3GB. Just another pro to using a 2 stick kit rather than the 4 sticks.

 

[Guttzu]

Ok that makes sense... Thank you. Also, I'm not sure why some people are bashing the Extreme 6 MB. Ressarch I've done has it as a decent board. Dumb question but when DDR4 comes out will that be a Bios update for the MB to handle it or will boards meant for DDR3 not be able to handle DDR4? Yeah the idea of running 2 sticks now makes sense and the X kit you linked seems to be the best money vs performance for a 2133 kit. Just trying to justify my purchase and make it sound good explaining to the wife lol!

 

[PP Mguire]

People still have it in their heads that ASRock is the Asus baby company and make budget boards. They are one of the top 3 sellers now. I would take an ASRock board any day over an Asus.

DDR4 setups will be different chips and boards. Just like DDR2 and 3.

What would your wife say if I told her 2133 was a waste of money
I'm lucky, as mine doesn't care lol.

 

[Guttzu]

Lol, luckily I'm in sales so I can talk my way around spending $150 on RAM... I'd have to cup check you if you told her lol. Ok so that X kit 2133 is your recommendation? I guess just run stock settings and I should be good, it says 1.6v but someone talked to customer service on it and they said it should be at 1.65v. We'll see what it is stable at. Would you mess with the timings too much or just leave it at stock settings? Yeah I'm not sure why people hate their boards... Maybe because you don't have to spend $300 to get a decent one so people think more expensive is better...

 

[PP Mguire]

Lol, luckily I'm in sales so I can talk my way around spending $150 on RAM... I'd have to cup check you if you told her lol. Ok so that X kit 2133 is your recommendation? I guess just run stock settings and I should be good, it says 1.6v but someone talked to customer service on it and they said it should be at 1.65v. We'll see what it is stable at. Would you mess with the timings too much or just leave it at stock settings? Yeah I'm not sure why people hate their boards... Maybe because you don't have to spend $300 to get a decent one so people think more expensive is better...

But....but, I'm not wearing a cup
Well, basically you're talking yourself into why you need it, because it's not necessary

Look for the kit on their site by model number and see what it says. If it autos to 1.6 then I would use that.

I'm not the best person to ask that. I run my kit at 1600 with stock timings (So yes that's 1600 with 11's). The IMC on the 2nd and 3rd gen Core i chips are very efficient so you don't see any gains over standard clocks without OCing very high. I'm talking 4.6-5GHz. That's why I keep iterating it isn't necessary. You get more help with large amounts of RAM because you can stuff whole programs in RAMDisk. For instance, my modded copy of Skyrim is 20GB and I put it in RAM. All of it. Loading times are ridiculously quick. Other than that, anything over the standard 8GB/1600MHz is pretty useless.

Yea people think more expensive is better. Typically that's the case, but not always. A 100 dollar Z77 board will do almost all the same things a 300 and 400 dollar one will minus a few super enthusiast things like 4 way SLI and such. Not those days anymore where a person spending 300 bucks on a board gets things the under dogs don't.

 

[Guttzu]

Ok sweet, I'll go with the 2 sticks. It does make sense to leave 2 slots open for future upgrades. That would be 32gb of RAM which is pretty nuts for size... I'm thinking the 2 8 gig sticks will be enough for me playing WoW, streaming my games on twitch, listening to music, and doing stuff on the Internet... Just wanted to get the best 2133 RAM I could afford lol...

 

[PP Mguire]

Still going to input, should have just stuck with 1600. Terrible waste of money really.

 

[Guttzu]

There is only a $30 difference between the 1600 kit and the 2133 kit... So much anger PP...