Ram Speed(1333 vs. 1600)

Let me start by saying that I did check the general info sticky in this forum, and also searched. Nothing that I found in the search was very recent, and was mostly related to using faster ram that would not be supported by the system speed. I'm sure this question has been asked before, and I apologize. I couldn't find anything on it

I'm getting ready to pre-order a Sager NP9170 and I can save $50 by downgrading to 8GB 1333MHz from 1600. Is there much of a performance difference between the two? What about upgrading to 1866 for $55. I'm already spending quite a bit for the system, so I don't mind spending for some reasonable performance gains. Any benchmarks between the two? What kind of performance gain, if any, would I see in gaming, general use and light photoshop? If it matters, I will be getting the 3610QM. Thanks in advance.

 

I did find this article: Core i7 Memory Scaling: From DDR3-800 to DDR3-1600 : Which RAM Speed Is Best For Core i7?

It's several years old, but I'm assuming it is still pertinent?

 

In general, the faster RAM won't make a practical difference unless you're gaming on IGP.

 

Thanks, that's the kind of practical info I was looking for!

 

To search the site effectively, Google -> site:forum.notebookreview.com "query" (without quotes, whatever you want to search such as "ram speed").

 

See my benches on the AMD IGP...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...g-benchmarked-various-ram-configurations.html

And also the dedicated GPU

http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...amd-radeon-hd-6750m-benchmarking-results.html

Bottom line:
- IGP will gain benefit from faster RAM and dual channel RAM
- Dedicated GPU doesn't care so much as long as you have enough RAM. These days 4GB is adequate, 8GB recommended.

 

I'd buy 1600 just because it is cheap enough.

 

Well that too. There's no reason not to have 8GB at 1600MHz these days anyhow. But if for whatever reason you can't/don't want to, 1333 will work just fine.

 

Also, some places like Mythlogic don't even offer the 1333 RAM anymore.

 

I would get the 1333mhz RAM. Unless you game on the iGPU a lot, there's going to be no difference, so might as well save the extra $50.

 

I agree with that^

 

As many others have commented, unless you're dead set on benchmark results you won't notice a difference in general use. It will show up (slightly) in benchmarks, particularly memory bandwidth and latency results as well as to a minor extent frames per second in select games.