Memory upgrade

[Basjoe]

Back in 2010 I bought an Edge i7 bundle from you. Just to refresh your memory of those distant days, this was basically an i7 930 Bloomfield (1366 LGA) sat on a Gigabyte X58a-UD3R with three 2GB sticks of DDR triple channel memory (can't remember the timings). It continues to be a splendid workhorse for my Cubase (and Edius Neo) system. Absolutely no complaints.

But these days my Cubase system is beginning to use quite a lot of memory-hungry plugs. My BFD2 drumset alone requires nearly 2 gigs of memory. Then there's Kontakt. Yes, it's time to increase the available memory, and it appears to be so cheap at the moment. 3 sticks of 4GB each totalling 12gb in all would seem to be a reasonable upgrade.

Does this make sense? If so, do you have any recommendations ? Would I need to revise bios settings to accommodate ?

Many thanks for any advice.

Graham Laws

[Basjoe]

I wasn't very helpful about the details of the existing memory. Here's some info extracted from the output of CPU-Z :-

Memory SPD
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

DIMM # 1
SMBus address 0x50
Memory type DDR3
Module format UDIMM
Manufacturer (ID) Corsair (7F7F9E0000000000)
Size 2048 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC3-10700H (667 MHz)
Part number CM3X2G1600C9
Number of banks 8
Nominal Voltage 1.50 Volts
EPP no
XMP yes
XMP revision 1.2
JEDEC timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency
JEDEC #1 6.0-6-6-16-23 @ 444 MHz
JEDEC #2 8.0-8-8-22-30 @ 592 MHz
JEDEC #3 9.0-9-9-24-34 @ 666 MHz
XMP profile XMP-1600
Specification PC3-12800
Voltage level 1.650 Volts
Min Cycle time 1.250 ns (800 MHz)
Min tRP 11.25 ns
Min tRCD 11.25 ns
Min tWR 15.00 ns
Min tRAS 30.00 ns
Min tRC 50.63 ns
Min tRFC 110.00 ns
Min tRTP 7.50 ns
Min tRRD 7.50 ns
Command Rate 2T
XMP timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC-CR @ frequency (voltage)
XMP #1 6.0-6-6-16-27-2T @ 533 MHz (1.650 Volts)
XMP #2 9.0-9-9-24-41-2T @ 800 MHz (1.650 Volts)

DIMM # 2
SMBus address 0x52
Memory type DDR3
Module format UDIMM
Manufacturer (ID) Corsair (7F7F9E0000000000)
Size 2048 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC3-10700H (667 MHz)
Part number CM3X2G1600C9
Number of banks 8
Nominal Voltage 1.50 Volts
EPP no
XMP yes
XMP revision 1.2
JEDEC timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency
JEDEC #1 6.0-6-6-16-23 @ 444 MHz
JEDEC #2 8.0-8-8-22-30 @ 592 MHz
JEDEC #3 9.0-9-9-24-34 @ 666 MHz
XMP profile XMP-1600
Specification PC3-12800
Voltage level 1.650 Volts
Min Cycle time 1.250 ns (800 MHz)
Min tRP 11.25 ns
Min tRCD 11.25 ns
Min tWR 15.00 ns
Min tRAS 30.00 ns
Min tRC 50.63 ns
Min tRFC 110.00 ns
Min tRTP 7.50 ns
Min tRRD 7.50 ns
Command Rate 2T
XMP timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC-CR @ frequency (voltage)
XMP #1 6.0-6-6-16-27-2T @ 533 MHz (1.650 Volts)
XMP #2 9.0-9-9-24-41-2T @ 800 MHz (1.650 Volts)

DIMM # 3
SMBus address 0x54
Memory type DDR3
Module format UDIMM
Manufacturer (ID) Corsair (7F7F9E0000000000)
Size 2048 MBytes
Max bandwidth PC3-10700H (667 MHz)
Part number CM3X2G1600C9
Number of banks 8
Nominal Voltage 1.50 Volts
EPP no
XMP yes
XMP revision 1.2
JEDEC timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC @ frequency
JEDEC #1 6.0-6-6-16-23 @ 444 MHz
JEDEC #2 8.0-8-8-22-30 @ 592 MHz
JEDEC #3 9.0-9-9-24-34 @ 666 MHz
XMP profile XMP-1600
Specification PC3-12800
Voltage level 1.650 Volts
Min Cycle time 1.250 ns (800 MHz)
Min tRP 11.25 ns
Min tRCD 11.25 ns
Min tWR 15.00 ns
Min tRAS 30.00 ns
Min tRC 50.63 ns
Min tRFC 110.00 ns
Min tRTP 7.50 ns
Min tRRD 7.50 ns
Command Rate 2T
XMP timings table CL-tRCD-tRP-tRAS-tRC-CR @ frequency (voltage)
XMP #1 6.0-6-6-16-27-2T @ 533 MHz (1.650 Volts)
XMP #2 9.0-9-9-24-41-2T @ 800 MHz (1.650 Volts)


Hope this helps !

Graham Laws

[Basjoe]

Any ideas ?
What about this, for example http://www.scan.co.uk/products/12gb-...-9-24-xmp-150v

GL

[drharvey12]

Any ideas ?
What about this, for example http://www.scan.co.uk/products/12gb-...-9-24-xmp-150v

GL

From what I know about memory (which is not a lot) when upgrading there are a couple of things to think about. I'm in the same boat looking to upgrade my RAM and have asked guys on various forums as to what to look out for.

Firstly, are you planning on running the new memory alongside the old memory? If you are you ideally want to get the same sort as you have already bought. If you are unable to get the same memory then pay attention to the timings on the RAM as it's advisable to have RAM that uses the same timings, ie: 9-9-9-24-2T. Having a quick look at your current RAM from CPU-Z it looks st though this runs at 1.65v. The RAM you have linked to would appear to run at 1.5v. Again, for compatability's sake I would advise that you get RAM that runs at the same voltage.

Secondly, does the heatsink & fan assembly on your CPU interfere with any of the slots? On my motherboard running one of the larger twin tower HSF's would have necessitated my use of low profile RAM (which has smaller heatspreaders on them so they don't interfere with the heat sink. If this was the case something like this should be ok:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/12gb-...9-10-9-27-165v

It also runs at 1.65v although the timings are CAS 9-10-9-27.

If neither of the above applies to you then what you have linked to should be fine.

The benefit of XMP memory is that the motherboard already has the timings so when you install it you should just go into the BIOS and select the XMP setting and it will configure everything for you (at least that's my understanding of how it should work).

I have been using the Corsair Dominator GT RAM for the last couple of years on my LGA1366 platform and have been very happy with it: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/12gb-...hx-xmp-df-165v

It's a bit pricier but it was what the system came with as it was built by the Scan 3XS team.

Anyway, as I said, I am pretty new to this myself so this is what I have been told by others when asking questions about this myself.

Hope it helps somewhat