Nautilus

I'm gonna need a DDR3 stick for AM3 platform. Which one would perform faster? I'll pairing it later since i'm short in cash.

70$ Patriot Signature Line 2GB 1600Mhz 9-9-9-28 [1.5V] or

78$ OCZ Platinum XTC 2 GB 1333 MHz 7-7-7-20 [1.8V] Also OCZ has 1.95V EVP...

Thanks in advance guys.

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Pao

I had the same type of decision to make, and at the time I didn't have much to run off except what was true with AM2 and that was that tighter timings were more beneficial then higher speeds. so I chose 1333 cl7. AM3 was continuing to use integrated memory controllers same as AM2, so I just went ahead with the knowledge I knew since I had nothing better to tell me otherwise.

Since then however I have seen actual memory testing which did show continued better results with tighter timings over higher speeds, so I'm glad I chose what I chose.

ericeod

I was also faced with a similar decision. I was looking at a 3x2Gb DDR3 2000 kit at 9-9-9-24 and a 3x2Gb DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24 kit. I went with the 2000 kit and ended up being able to run it at DDR3 1611 6-7-6-18. So you have to consider that you will more then likely be able to downclock the ram and tighten the timings easier then getting slower speed ram and trying to increase the speed while maintaining tight timings.

I would also consider the ram voltage, and the fact that the higher speed kit is rated for 1.5v. You might be able to get more performance out of them with a slight voltage increase (1.65v - 1.70v).

I'm not sure what the ram speed limit is with AMD, but i7 doesnt show much improvment over DDR3 1600 speeds, so you might want to see were the AMD DDR3 speeds tend to hit a plateau.

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bringonblink

i would get the cas 7 kit, phenom 2 (am assuming you're getting pII if you're getting AM3) prefer tighter timings, im actually running my 1600 rated ram at 1333.

SwishaMane

I heard that theres literally no physical differences between ddr3 at 7-7-7 1333 and 9-9-9-1600, they are pretty much same thing, 1600 might pull away by a fraction because of the raw operating freq differnce. My phII is on 1600 9-9-9-27, and it yawning at 3.8ghz at 1.385vcore, so I don't see how 1333 could be any better with a dramatically slower freq overall. Timings are very important. You're best bet would be a 1600 kit rated to do 7-7-7, best of both worlds.

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Bleached

Those are pretty slow. Buying 1333 or 2000 is not a big difference in price unless you are going for the really good IC's. What you need to know is which ones your motherboard likes better. For example, Gigabyte usually like Micron and Asus do better with Elpida Hyper. Micron's will be higher volts, but that isn't much of a difference. Elpida Hyper's are king, but they are seriously expensive and are used on the top RAM Modules like Dominator GT 1600+.

Right now AM3 are really picky with different IC's and a lot won't run at rated speeds. So it is kind of luck of the draw. The new stepping is suppose to fix that. My suggestion would be to look for something that has tight timings ie. 1333 cl 6, 1600 cl 7. Though you might not run rated it would at least do 1600 cl8 and that is much better than 1600 cl 9. Also, there is a wall for DDR3 at 1850. A good bet is to get to 1800. So many people buy either 1600 and overclock or 2000 and downclock. Both should be able to hit ~1800.

richierich1212

Get tighter timings and lowest volts possible

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