memory query

[hardwareguy15]

hi all

i'm slightly confused by memory, it appears ddr3 speeds all the way to pc22400 (2.8ghz) but Z87 motherboards seem to list support for anything above pc12800 (1.6ghz) as overclocking

so does buying memory rated above 1.6ghz into Z87 mobos count as overclocking or not?

also do you think faster memory is worth the extra investment?
prices for 16gb
pc 12800 - ~£120
pc 14900 - ~£140
pc 17066 - ~£148
pc 19200 - ~£150

i also won't be considering a customised cooling solution, and would be relying solely on the heatsink that comes with the ram

i'm looking to build a 4770k which will be used mainly for gaming, video compression and photo conversion from RAW to JPG on the occasion

thanks all for the help

[Bonebreaker777]

Any memory beyond the supported official speed by the Intel CPUs is achieved by overclocking (with a bit of luck, you can set the speed with XMP as well).

Unfortunately the performance increase while using faster that 1600Mhz memory modules is no way reflected in the price increase. Usually the 1600Mhz rated memory modules can be overclocked to higher frequencies while reflecting the timings as well of more expensive modules.

Just go with some easily available memory modules. The last memory modules I tested with Haswell were from Crucial in a MSI board (tested Crucial Ballistix VLP 1.35V and Crucial Smart Tracer).
Both overclocked from 1600Mhz @ 8-8-8-24 to 2166Mhz @ 11-11-11-30 while running at 1.5V (maybe they would go at higher frequencies with higher voltage but I am not comfortable with that).

Just buy some reasonable memory modules with some not so bad timings (don't go for anything like 1600Mhz 11-11-11-30 at 1.65V) and you will be just fine.

[hardwareguy15]

'beyond the supported official speed by the Intel CPUs is achieved by overclocking'
what would be overclocked if i'm run the cpu core at stock?

[Bonebreaker777]

Running the CPU at default speed does not exclude memory overclocking and vice versa.

You can overclock your CPU and run the memory at default speed if your chipset supports it (which would be most likely determined by your CPU primarily and your actual memory modules secondly, for example Sandy Bridge CPUs supports 1333Mhz memory modules by default max, higher speeds have to be achieved by overclocking) or run your non-K CPU at default speed and overclock your memory (that is more chipset and memory depending).

Don't worry, your Z87 supports both CPU & RAM overclocking. Your best price/performance ratio will be achieved with some 1600Mhz memory modules after overclocking.
Rake up the frequency to 2133-2166Mhz and timings to the default at those frequencies and test the stability.

If stable, congratulations, you can leave it or play further with the frequency and/or the timings.

If not stable, increase voltage (up to 1.65v), increase timings or decrease frequency and keep testing.

[hardwareguy15]

thanks Bonebreaker777 for the advise

one more q - as you have been overclocking your RAM , do you notice much system performance improvements (gaming and sythentic benchmarks?) with ram running 1600mhz vs 2ghz?

[Bonebreaker777]

Naa. The last Haswell system I built had overclocked CPU, RAM and GPU (Cinebench results of the machine can be found in the corresponding thread).
When I tested the machine I found that with a HD7770 it did not really matter if the RAM or even the CPU was overclocked, only overclocking the GPU made any real difference gaming wise (including 1 memory module vs 2).
Only difference I could found between stock speed RAM and overclocked was in synthetic tests like AIDA64 or Prime (not even Cinebench shows significant gain from RAM overclock). Simply I overclocked the RAM cause I could, was easy enough, cost nothing extra and we wanted to remove any possible bottleneck from the memory subsystem.

And that was a lot easier that with my current machine (where I can't overclock the frequency, only adjust the timings, so I manually tweaked all the timings which were showing in synthetic tests as a performance gain to the edge of stability without increasing voltage while testing overnight the stability of significant changes (even so the gain in synthetic tests is below 2.5% and in real world applications near to zero).

Only with seriously overclocked CPU and multiple GPU would RAM overclocking be necessary in order to remove any bottleneck. Till then just buy any 1600Mhz kit, overclock it to levels where you don't need to spend any additional resources and enjoy. Will make "literally" no difference. Choose something low voltage and low profile (or even very low voltage and very low profile, will generate minimal additional heat and lower consumption, but again insignificantly less that normal modules, like standard height and 1.5v rated).
Crucial Tracers are smart memory modules, can make on fly adjustments to then and have lights. If you like such things.