RAM advice needed

[Lapis]

Hi all,

Friend has bought a barebones kit comprising:

CPU: Core i7 950 (4 x 3.06GHz ~ 3.33GHz - 4.8GT/s FSB - 8MB Cache)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R
Graphics Card: GIGABYTE GV-R685D5-1GD
PSU: 700 Watt Power Supply - Dual PCIe 2.0 Compliant

All this gear has landed on my kitchen table, with the request that I ''get whatever RAM it needs and stick it together for me, thx''.

So, super quickie: any advice on which RAM I ought to order to compliment this little set up would be very very gratefully received. I, of course, have a few ideas but trust in the expertise of this board rather more than my own instincts.

Many many thanks to anyone who gives their time to reply,

Jessica =)

[aidanjt]

Whichever triple channel PC3-10666 kits are going for a reasonable price. Ideally stick with kits which will run at 1.5 volts as that is the standard DDR3 voltage. Something like this will do: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=8&subcat=1390

Shop around. Use google product search to see if you can bag better bargains. Anything higher than PC3-10666 (1333MHz) is beyond Core i7 supported frequencies and the motherboard wont even autoconfigure it to run any faster, so buying faster RAM is a pointless waste of money, and the triple channel gives the Core i7 CPU oodles of memory bandwidth, anyway. So avoid those unless you want to deal with the implications which come with overclocking and pushing hardware beyond specified limits, and your friend complaining about random problems.

Stick with reputable brands. And if you have any more questions, fire away. Good luck.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

What is the budget for the RAM??

The X58 motherboards run the RAM in triple channel meaning either a 3GB or 6GB kit.

Also,what model is the PSU??

An el-cheapo PSU is not a very good idea especially with a socket 1366 based setup.

I also assume that you have a graphics card too as socket 1366 motherboards don't have an integrated graphics card.

[Lapis]

Thanks for the replies.

The budget is somewhat elastic, I get a 'whatever will do the spec justice' type of response. He has a graphics card, listed in the first post. He had actually talked of using DDR3 1600 RAM; is that absolutely not a good idea then?

Thanks again guys,

Jessica =)

[aidanjt]

Yeah, it's just a headache really. When it comes to RAM, more of it is better than faster, but even beyond 6GB is difficult to justify unless you're doing some serious research computing or running a stack of virtual machines or something of the sort.

[Pob255]

If the plan is to over clock then a 3x2gb 1600mhz kit http://www.scan.co.uk/products/6gb-%...-8-24-xmp-150v this is good esp for overclocking as you've got lower latencies and voltage

If not overclocking then basic 1333mhz cas9 is fine http://www.scan.co.uk/products/6gb-%...-9-9-9-24-165v (you can still overclock on that but your far more limited)

Voltage 1.5 to 1.65 you can run it higher, the majority of memory can take far higher voltages, the problem in the memory controller on the cpu, there's also a delta to worry about connected to the VTT voltage, but I'm a bit lost on that.