Plain-looking RAM options

[spiffles]

Howdy folks! 

Could you pls rec me some RAM that's 3200 MHZ and, CL15, but plain-looking? Or at least without all those top thingies that add height? I'm thinking of buying a 3950x setup and 4 dimms of 8 GB sound like a good add. But I also have a Noctua NH D-15, which usually covers all RAM. So I need dimms of standard height so I don't need to place the outer fan any higher than it is at the moment when installing. Thanks in advance!

[Enderman]

Just search for low profile ram.

[WoodenMarker]

What case are you using? The clearance available would determine how tall the ram can be. 

[Jurrunio]

4 minutes ago, spiffles said:

3200 MHZ and, CL15,

3200 CL15 will greatly worsen prices compared to CL16

 

4 minutes ago, spiffles said:

but plain-looking? Or at least without all those top thingies that add height?

in PCPP, just select sticks without heatspreader in the filter

[MartinKweh]

those vengence LPX is abour 31mm. those will fit. or those crucial ram without heat spreaders

[Jurrunio]

1 minute ago, WoodenMarker said:

What case are you using? The clearance available would determine how tall the ram can be. 

I thought cooler matters most?

[WoodenMarker]

1 minute ago, Jurrunio said:

I thought cooler matters most?

The OP mentioned having an NH-D15.

[Fasauceome]

Hard to argue with Corsair Vengeance LPX 

 

[Jurrunio]

9 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

The OP mentioned having an NH-D15.

now I understand

 

16 minutes ago, spiffles said:

I don't need to place the outer fan any higher than it is at the moment when installing.

why? It's designed to let you raise the fan, even by a lot if necessary

[spiffles]

15 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

What case are you using? The clearance available would determine how tall the ram can be. 

Redragon Ironhide. As it is right now, the Noctua almost touches the side glass panel. I did manage to squeeze in the owl sticker on top on one of the fans though, lol

3 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

now I understand

 

why? It's designed to let you raise the fan, even by a lot if necessary

`Yes, but two things: I'm anal about both the fans being of equal hight, and the case is limiting me. Also, doesn't it worsen the cooling effect if less area of the radiator is within the light of the fan?

[Otto_iii]

there is some super low profile 2666mhz ADATA on websites like aliexpress, no heat spreader, purple pcb color, (close up for serial number)


but i'd have to agree with everybody else, Corsair Vengence LPX is your best bet by far, fairly sure the whole marketing behind that ram is for ITX and fitting with coolers like the D15, while still offering good speed/latencies at reasonable value

 

Running a 3950x at 2666mhz would be a crime

[Jurrunio]

5 minutes ago, spiffles said:

Also, doesn't it worsen the cooling effect if less area of the radiator is within the light of the fan?

in theory maybe, in practice I don't see any difference.

[WoodenMarker]

2 minutes ago, spiffles said:

Redragon Ironhide. As it is right now, the Noctua almost touches the side glass panel. I did manage to squeeze in the owl sticker on top on one of the fans though, lol

`Yes, but two things: I'm anal about both the fans being of equal hight, and the case is limiting me. Also, doesn't it worsen the cooling effect if less area of the radiator is within the light of the fan?

This site mentions the case having 165mm of clearance for the cooler. That allows for the front fan in the default position which should allow for ram up to 32mm under the fan. As mentioned, Corsair LPX or any other standard height ram would work fine. 

Where are you shopping / located? Budget?

Any particular reason you're looking for 8gb sticks of ram? That capacity seems a bit low per stick when you can pretty easily get 16gb sticks instead.

Raising the fan a bit doesn't make a huge difference in cooling and the middle fan does most of the work.

[spiffles]

1 minute ago, WoodenMarker said:

This site mentions the case having 165mm of clearance for the cooler. That allows for the front fan in the default position which should allow for ram up to 32mm under the fan. As mentioned, Corsair LPX or any other standard height ram would work fine. 

Where are you shopping / located? Budget?

Any particular reason you're looking for 8gb sticks of ram? That capacity seems a bit low per stick when you can pretty easily get 16gb sticks instead.

Raising the fan a bit doesn't make a huge difference in cooling and the middle fan does most of the work.

Okay then, up to 32mm it is. The RAM doesn't need to be low profile, but whenever I look for something over 3000 MHz, the super tall and fancy ones always pop up. I'd prefer side radiators to be there at the very least. 

The budget is irrelevant, since it's not really a pressing upgrade and I should be able to save up for it (currently 7700k and 32 GB 2133 mhz RAM), and take the rest in installments if need be. 

Why 8 GB sticks? Because I'm thinking of getting four, for 32 MB, like I have now. Are you saying that 2x 16 is more efficient than 4x8?

[WoodenMarker]

Just now, spiffles said:

Okay then, up to 32mm it is. The RAM doesn't need to be low profile, but whenever I look for something over 3000 MHz, the super tall and fancy ones always pop up. I'd prefer side radiators to be there at the very least. 
The budget is irrelevant, since it's not really a pressing upgrade and I should be able to save up for it (currently 7700k and 32 GB 2133 mhz RAM), and take the rest in installments if need be. 
Why 8 GB sticks? Because I'm thinking of getting four, for 32 MB, like I have now. Are you saying that 2x 16 is more efficient than 4x8?

The heatsinks are mainly for decoration and usually unnecessary. 

Where are you shopping / located? There are usually at least a few options available with modest heatsinks. 

In general, fewer sticks = fewer problems. 4 sticks can allow for more performance on a platform with quad channel support but that isn't the case with the 3950x. 2x16gb would at the very least allow for more room for upgrade in the future. 

[spiffles]

2 minutes ago, WoodenMarker said:

The heatsinks are mainly for decoration and usually unnecessary. 

Where are you shopping / located? There are usually at least a few options available with modest heatsinks. 

In general, fewer sticks = fewer problems. 4 sticks can allow for more performance on a platform with quad channel support but that isn't the case with the 3950x. 2x16gb would at the very least allow for more room for upgrade in the future. 

My location is Poland. 

Could you elaborate on that? I know quad-channel is something only HEDT platforms tend to have, but how is it otherwise? Is 4x actually slower than 2x, or just not any faster? I know that even numbers of dimms are more efficient than odd numbers, but not sure what the relevance is beyond that.

[GoldenLag]

38 minutes ago, spiffles said:

Is 4x actually slower than 2x, or just not any faster?

They are the same speed, but 2 sticks improve overclocking and XMP "compatibility".

 

Would look at crucial 3200mhz cl16 kits for E-die if you are overclocking

[1van]

12 hours ago, spiffles said:

Noctua NH D-15

This cooler has a great RAM clearance, it has cuts in the heatsink on both sides, I remember using huge Corsair Vengeance and HyperX DDR3 modules with it, no problem.

 

With a single fan it can dissipate about 200-230W, max fan speed.

 

With R9-3950X you should be more concerned that its heatspreader is not flat sometimes, so there is a poor contact between the cooler and the heatspreader.

[WoodenMarker]

On 11/18/2019 at 11:19 PM, spiffles said:

My location is Poland. 
Could you elaborate on that? I know quad-channel is something only HEDT platforms tend to have, but how is it otherwise? Is 4x actually slower than 2x, or just not any faster? I know that even numbers of dimms are more efficient than odd numbers, but not sure what the relevance is beyond that.

More parts can mean more problems and high memory density means you can add more memory without replacing the ram you already have. Asides from that, there's little to no practical difference in performance. 

I'd recommend a Ballistix Sport LT kit especially if you plan to oc the ram: https://www.ceneo.pl/85376413

[spiffles]

On 11/21/2019 at 6:57 AM, WoodenMarker said:

More parts can mean more problems and high memory density means you can add more memory without replacing the ram you already have. Asides from that, there's little to no practical difference in performance. 

I'd recommend a Ballistix Sport LT kit especially if you plan to oc the ram: https://www.ceneo.pl/85376413

Thanks, sounds good! 

Another question tho - how do you define "OC"? I only want to get it up to the advertised speed of 3200MHz really. Does that count as OC, or do you need to go beyond that to speak of OC? I know that depending on the motherboard anything above 2133MHz might require loading an XMP profile, but not sure if that's overclocking in and of itself.

[WoodenMarker]

7 hours ago, spiffles said:

Another question tho - how do you define "OC"? I only want to get it up to the advertised speed of 3200MHz really. Does that count as OC, or do you need to go beyond that to speak of OC? I know that depending on the motherboard anything above 2133MHz might require loading an XMP profile, but not sure if that's overclocking in and of itself.

 The advertised 3200mhz and anything above the default motherboard 2133mhz is an oc but it's guaranteed by the manufacturer to work in their advertised configurations.

I was referring to manually oc'ing since the kit has been shown to oc past the advertised factory oc fairly reliably.

[spiffles]

Ok, so I picked up that pair of Crucial 16gb 3200 mhz CL16. They're pretty amazing, and I didn't have any problems with either the installation or putting the side Noctua fan back on. The XMP profile loads with no issues and performs as advertised at 1.35V, even though I still only have a 7700k. I might grab another pair of these DIMMs sometime in the future, though for right now I'm pretty much set. It's going to be years before >32 GB of RAM is a necessary requirement for anything much