Buying RAM today - faster 8GB vs slower 16GB?

Machine: Sager NP5165, i7-2630m, 4GB Samsung PC3-10700, win7x64

Uses:
Photoshop/Lightroom photo editing - very frequently, almost daily. 50-100pic batch editing, RAW lighting adjustments/tweaks.
Mild gaming - Battlefield 3, STWOR
Movie Streaming - full 1080p
Web - millions of tabs at once.

8GB Corsair Vengeance PC3-12800 CL9-9-9-24 CMSX8GX3M2A1600C9 from Newegg for $39.99 (on sale from $44.99):

Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model CMSX8GX3M2A1600C9

or

16GB Patriot Signature PC3-10600 PSD316G1333SK for $49.99 (on sale from $64.99)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220621


I can afford either, just not sure if I really need the extra 8GB for what I use it for. I do mostly photo editing via Lightroom on a 50-100 pic basis, mainly touchups and lighting adjustments. No video editing but I stream daily via HDMI.

 

Go for 16GB then if you do mostly photo work.

 

+1 for 16GB
It's near useless for gaming but has advantages in Photo/Video/Audio editing software.

 

If you had to pick less faster RAM or more slower RAM go with faster.
For PS/LR 8GB should be plenty for you. I do a lot of photo editing too also in RAW and usually have around 5GB being used and thats with several images open at the same time. Lets say all you were using was 5-6GB of RAM, you'd want the faster RAM so its working at 1600Mhz. If you had 16GB working at 1333Mhz all that extra RAM you have isnt doing you any good, and the RAM being used would be working at the slower speed.
If you're not in a big hurry you might find a good deal for 16GB 1600Mhz for black Friday sales coming up in 2 weeks.

 

I would go with the 16GB option. Disk I/O is going to be your primary bottleneck when it comes to speed, not RAM I/O. If you were using the IGP, you may see some difference from 1600, but your laptop has a dedicated GPU. Also, unless you have confirmation that the mainboard in your laptop supports 1600, you may be stuck at 1333 in either case (or if you can't set RAM clock frequency in BIOS, it may run @ 1333 anyway, set by SPD).

 

Yeah I don't think you'll see any difference in performance between the two ram. Sure I have the 1600, but that was cause the price was right, that's all. With that lower speed, you should be able to get CL8 ram for cheap, that's what I would go for. I think lower latency > speed.

 

Benchmarks show about a 4% difference when going from 1333Mhz to 1600Mhz. You probably wont see the difference but its there. I think Speed > CL, would you rather have 333Mhz CL 2.5 or 1333Mhz CL 8 or 2400Mhz CL 11 (while 2400Mhz isnt support its just for an example) 1600Mhz is pretty much the standard now.

 

This. If anything I'd go for an SSD.

If you ever go past 8gb memory I'd be surprised. At least anytime soon.

 

Get the 16GB of ram and use thiaphoon burner to overclock it?

 

haha, exactly what i was thinking!

 

more ram.
i agree that atm ram speed nor amount wont be a limiting factor to your ps work but it should also help in your multi tab browsing and will be of good use also is you decide to go video down the road.

 

When deciding between more RAM or faster RAM, always go for more RAM. You benefit way more from more ram them father ram.

Sent from my Samsung Captivate/ICS CM9 via Tapatalk.

 

Overclocking RAM is not a good idea.

 

Exactly my thought
Also, for the sake of getting a better price when you sell your laptop, buy the 1600mhz! In 1 year the 1333mhz will be no more. Then you can have a hard time selling it. Invest in 1600mhz!!

 

go buy 16gb of 2133 rated sticks best of both worlds

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

I remember Sandy & Ivy series CPUs have their built-in 1600mhz ddr3 memory controller.
Does that mean anything above 1600mhz will not be utilized correctly?

 

nah, as long as the ram is PnP and the speed is hardcoded into the sticks by SPD 1866 is possible without issues. so far thats been the fastest available,but recently 2133 sticks came out by kingston

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

It was mostly tongue in cheek, but so long as you are careful its like any other overclocking but without heat concerns.

 

This really depends on the usage, if he won't go past 8gb, faster ram will benefit him more (since the additional 8gb would be unused most of the time), gaming, browsing (with a million tabs ), HD streaming won't get you past 8gb of ram
however with PS only you could answer.

I say go with faster ram, 16gb would be useless if the 8gb isn't used 90% of the time

 

I agree, let the actual usage decide.

Now TS, there is a third aspect to look at:

Are you using 64 bits Photoshop or 32 bits?

If you are using the 32 bit version you can only assign so much RAM to Photoshop where it starts to use a scratch disk for the temporary data it uses. This can slow it down significantly, especially when working with large files. If you have lots of RAM, you could create a RAMdisk and let Photoshop use that disk as the scratch disk. That would actually speed it up to speeds closer to having all cache written to the RAM like the 64 bits does. Also, I'm assuming you know how to assign amounts of GBs from RAM to Photoshop.

Personally, I'd go with the bigger amount of RAM, because I develop systems and such which almost requires using virtual machines.

 

Previous post is exactly what I was going to suggest. Get an SSD, or add an mSATA drive (yes, it's only SATA II, but it's still fast) and create a RAM drive. Test it out.

 

Ram drives are always a pain, but SSDs are getting affordable and a great upgrade for anyone who needs HDD performance.

 

Fixed it for you

 

Spend 20 bucks more for Amazon.com: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory (CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10): Computers & Accessories

 

Actually, some 16GB (2x8GB) kits at 1866MHz came out recently, may want to check those out...

Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance Performance 16GB (2 x 8G) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1866 Laptop Memory Model CMSX16GX3M2A1866C10

 

What would be the purpose of spending more money on faster RAM that can't be taken advantage of? The Sager specs state "support for DDR3 1333/1600MHz* (Real operation frequency depends on FSB of processor)" and Intel specs give memory speeds of "1333/1600MHz". Not trying to be a jerk but are the manufacturers incorrect?

 

It can be taken advantage of. I checked this extensively before purchasing a 4x4GB kit of Corsair's 1866 DDR3 that I use currently. It works fine and contrary to Newegg's spec sheet, the profiles are in SPD settings, not XMP, so they work fine without any modification or any hacky type of things.

 

They work fine. I can accept that, but at what speed. I bet you are getting 1600 speeds, only.

 

According to CPU-Z they work at 1866MHz. Why do people have such a hard time accepting this? You can check my profile and go back (quite a bit likely) to see, I'm pretty sure I posted screenshots in the past.

 

thanks for the opinions/help guys. i ended up waiting a couple days and scooped 16GB of g.skill 1600mhz from neweggs shellshocker deal today for $49.99.

CL is 10 vs 9 but I'm doubting it'll be noticible at this point anyway.

 

It honestly wouldn't make any difference except very slightly if you're using the integrated GPU for games. Shell Shocker is always the way to go. I usually end up waiting until they drop an SSD I want in there to snag em.

 

Sorry about that. I didn't know I had to research your profile and go check on your screenshots. The reason we all question it is because Intel and Sager state 1600 speeds. It's good to know we can surpass that. Thanks.

 

I would hope so, we had some 1866 Custom made for us by Patriot Memory and its our default memory, so if it doesn't work that would be news to us and them

Also with the later BIOS's in the EM series, the Corsair 1866 doesn't work as well, so if you are going 1866 then you want either some hyperX or we'll sell you some 1866 also.

FYI those kingston 2133 won't work in the Clevo's we tested those too. Its too bad too.

 

oooh, ok, so the 1866 PnP ones are the best we can run in our machines. thx for the heads-up

 

Well I got 1866mhz CL9 out of my hyper-X....

2133mhz ram wont work because intel's memory controller falls over at those speeds, if we had voltage control over that we could give it more juice but clevo does not want to give that level of control.

 

is there no in-between speed? like 2000 or smth? could give that one a try then. or just get 1866 and OC that

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

They like 2400Mhz...

 

Remember the W110 has MUCH closer traces when it comes to RAM to the CPU, the P series is much further away and thats the largest contributing factor on these for memory stability is the DIMM slots are pretty far away and the boards have less trace layers.

 

So the W11 baby wins again...and listen to him guys that's the engineering diploma speaking...

 

The memory slot placement never ceases to amaze me on some machines, not so bad on the MSI (for the first two slots), though it seems it's not as good as the W110.

It may also help that the W110 only has two slots.

The CPU has no internal divider for anything in between.

 

Has anyone had luck with the Kingston HyperX 8GB x 2 kits in the 2012 Clevo P370EM?

Kingston KHX16S9P1K2/16 (HyperX Plug n Play 16GB (2x8GB) Kit of 2 1600MHz PC3-12800 DDR3 Non-ECC CL9).
Link: Amazon.com: HyperX Plug n Play 16GB (2x8GB) Kit of 2 1600MHz PC3-12800 DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 SODIMM Notebook Memory KHX16S9P1K2/16: Computers & Accessories

OR

Kingston KHX18C11P1K2/16 (HyperX Plug n Play 16 GB Kit (2x8 GB) 1866MHz DDR3 PC3-15000 Non-ECC CL11).
Link: Looks like Amazon mislabeled it as desktop memory: Amazon.com: Kingston Technology HyperX Plug n Play 16 GB Kit (2x8 GB) 1866MHz DDR3 PC3-15000 Non-ECC CL11 DIMM Desktop Memory KHX18C11P1K2/16: Computers & Accessories

And does anyone know the specs of Mythlogic's custom Patriot 1866MHz Memory? 8GB DIMMs available?

Thanks!

 

What issues would you for see? It's just plug n play ram. No luck needed, you plug it in, you play.

 

the kingston PnP 1600 and 1866 should run fine on clevo machines. only ones making trouble are the 2133 mhz sticks. theyve just been known to work on aw m18x laptops so far.

 

Always go with more ram when forced to choose between faster ram and more ram. The speed difference won't be noticeable. The benefit will be from the added ram.

Edit: Didn't realize this was 5 pages long...and I already responded on page 2...


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2

 

Thanks guys. Hmm, as far as PnP & luck:

I have 4 modules of this:
Kingston KHX1866C11S3P1K2/8G (HyperX Plug n Play 8 GB Kit (2x4GB Modules) 1866MHz DDR3 CL11 1.5v).
Link: Amazon.com: Kingston HyperX Plug n Play 8 GB Kit (2x4GB Modules) 1866MHz DDR3 SODIMM Notebook/Netbook Memory 8 Dual Channel Kit (PC3 15000) 204-Pin KHX1866C11S3P1K2/8G: Electronics

These are 4GB modules. 2 work without issues in slots 1 & 2 in my P370EM (i7-3630QM). All 4 slots populated with this HyperX memory do not work.
All 4 modules work without issues in all 4 slots in a 2011 P150HM (i7-2860QM) as well as several other laptops.
All 4 modules have been through multiple tests in memtest & Prime95 with 0 errors.
____________________
I have 4 modules of this:
Samsung M471B5273DH0-CK0 (4GB 1600MHz PC3-12800 CL11 1.5v).
Link: Samsung DDR3 SODIMM 4GB 1600 MHz PC3 12800 Laptop Memory 1x 4G M471B5273DH0 CK0 | eBay

These are 4GB modules. All 4 slots populated with this Samsung memory works fine without any issues.
This Samsung memory in slots 1 & 2 and the HyperX in slots 3 & 4 works fine at 1600MHZ CL11.

Command Rate (CR) with all 4 slots populated with the Samsung memory is 2T.

Command Rate (CR) with 2 slots populated with the Samsung memory is 1T.
____________________
The laptop's memory slots are fine. The HyperX memory is fine.

It's been repeatedly reported on this forum that the 2012 Clevo's laptops are more 'picky' with overclocked memory compared to last years models. So that is why I posted my original question.

So if the goal is 16GB of memory, and to keep 1T CR, I would think 2 x 8GB would be the better than 4 x 4GB. Any opinions or advice from knowledgeable users would be appreciated. :hi2:

 

Going for high density sticks also means you can add more in future easily if you need it.

 

Sure, but with 2 DIMMs on each channel (so 4 DIMMs in total) you will get interleaving, and that can speed things up as well.

 

There are two channels so you only get a speed increase with two sticks unless you get the X79 chipset P570WM in which case it has 4 channels.

4 sticks tends to be a little slower since timings (like the command rate) have to be relaxed to get them all to run.

 

I am about to purchase the Sager NP9150 and I am also interested in installing 16gb of RAM. Can someone recommend which brand/model # of memory will offer me the best performance? Sequencer1 posted that the memory he purchased would not work when he utilized all 4 slots, and I would like to avoid this. Thanks.

 

Any two 1600mhz or 1866mhz 8GB sticks will do to be honest though corsair/kingston are the popular higher performance ones.