Ram amount and speed?

[Gll]

I'm getting a new computer, and I need the spec to be very good for error-free heavy memory usage and multitasking.

Basic spec will be

i7-3820 overclocked to 4.6GHz
Asus Rampage IV Extreme motherboard
Matrix Platinum graphics card
SSD
Windows7 Pro

the RAM will always be fully used, so the OS will always have to use the SSD for extra space as virtual memory / swap file. But the SSD will always be full as well, so there'll be slowdowns.

It'll be used for internet browsing (1500+ tabs open simultaneously, including over 100 Youtube videos fully loaded, and many of the other tabs will have javascript and flash player plugins running), converting music CDs to mp3 and lossless formats, downloading music from Itunes store, and gaming. All at the same time.

I have a few options for RAM

32GB at 1866MHz, 2133MHz or 2400MHz
64GB at 1866MHz, 2133MHz or 2400MHz, but I've been told by the retailer that the cpu may not be able to overclock stably with so much memory, especially at 2400MHz


Which combination of ram amount and speed will give the best multitasking performance and least errors (especially errors in the converted and downloaded music files)? Which ones can't be used by the motherboard without reducing the cpu overclock speed (and what should the cpu speed be reduced to, to keep it stable)?


Finally, which ram manufacturers should I look at for the best reliability and performance? Most of them use Hynix chips, but is there a noticable difference?

[chuckskull]

In terms of frequency it makes almost no difference performance wise. So go for the lower Frequencies. I happily overclock with 32GB and I'd while expect some loss in absolute max overclock from 64GB, but getting beyond 4.0 should still be no problem.

However, I think you could save a lot of money by altering your usage patterns. 1500 tabs and a 100 flash videos(this will always cause errors flash gets very crashy with multiple flash objects open). Use bookmarks, there's no way you're accessing 1500 pages and 100 videos regularly enough to need them left open, certainly not while gaming too. If you do this you can drop half that RAM and buy a multi-terabyte hard drive or 2 for storage and then your SSD won't be constantly full. A constantly full system drive will cause significant slowdown, doubly so with an SSD and can cause errors with certain programs. If you really require that much space on the C drive, switch to a larger mechanical drive, if you desperately need speed and size then you could consider RAID.

Error rate is to do with stability, if the system is stable you'll get 0 errors regardless of specs.

For Manufacturer I always go for corsair, but you're correct there's little difference between named brands.

[Thorsson]

1500+ tabs. The mind boggles. Why?

[kompukare]

1500+ tabs. The mind boggles. Why?

The only thing I can think of is some kind of stability testing, but of what?

To the OP, error-free heavy memory usage + overclocking do not mix. If you truly need error-free (although for browsing even with 1500+ tabs, why?) then you need ECC which for Intel usually means Xeon. ECC memory is expensive as well.