ram Single or Dual-rank Memory for 5900x

[meowingtons]

Good day everyone! I'm building my first new PC in a long time, and need some advice regarding the hardware I'm selecting. I thought I had all my parts picked out, but now I'm seeing a lot of chatter on Reddit about ranks while picking out RAM and I'm not sure if I should be going for single rank or dual rank or how to tell which ranks which sticks are etc.

 

The main focus of my thread is which RAM to go with but additionally any recommendations for a case which can accommodate both a Noctua NH-D15 and an RTX 3080 would be great and any other remarks/concerns regarding the rest of my build are also welcome.

 

Budget (including currency):

- I have specific hardware in mind, so whatever is reasonable maintaining those particular parts.

Country:

- The Netherlands/Germany

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 

- Professional 3D ArchViz workloads, rendering in MODO (CPU/GPU hybrid renderer, mainly CPU oriented though)

- CS:GO/Guild Wars 2 mainly

Other details:

- Would like to upgrade asap (aka. as soon as hardware becomes available)

 

Here are the parts currently in my shopping cart (prices are in euro rounded up to the nearest euro) :

CPU: Ryzen 9 5900x (579.-) paired with the classic trusty Noctua NH-D15 (95.-)

GPU: MSI RTX 3080 Ventus 3X 10G OC (759.-) or ASUS TUF RTX 3080 10G GAMING (749.-)

MOBO: MSI MAG x570 TOMAHAWK WIFI (219.-) or ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (193.-)

MAIN STORAGE: 1TB WD Blue NVMe (90.-)

and now for the tricky part (at least to me)...

RAM (all 2x 16GB kits): HyperX 32GB DDR4-3200 (CL16 20-20) (118.-) or HyperX 32 GB DDR4-3600 (CL18 22-22) (148.-)

or alternatively...

Corsair 32 GB DDR4-3200 (CL16 18-18-36) (125.-) or Corsair 32 GB DDR4-3600 (CL18 22-22-42) (136.-)

or again... (can you tell this is the part I'm uncertain about yet?)

G.Skill 32 GB DDR4-3200 (CL 16 18-18-38) (127.-) or G.Skill 32 GB DDR4-3600 (CL16 19-19-39) (159.- but currently unavailable where I'm looking)

 

 

 

 

[ChazzerDaMan]

From what I have heard, these perform very nicely for their price, and are the sweet spot for Zen 3.

[leonardmartin29]

21 minutes ago, meowingtons said:

Good day everyone! I'm building my first new PC in a long time, and need some advice regarding the hardware I'm selecting. I thought I had all my parts picked out, but now I'm seeing a lot of chatter on Reddit about ranks while picking out RAM and I'm not sure if I should be going for single rank or dual rank or how to tell which ranks which sticks are etc.

 

The main focus of my thread is which RAM to go with but additionally any recommendations for a case which can accommodate both a Noctua NH-D15 and an RTX 3080 would be great and any other remarks/concerns regarding the rest of my build are also welcome.

 

Budget (including currency):

- I have specific hardware in mind, so whatever is reasonable maintaining those particular parts.

Country:

- The Netherlands/Germany

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: 

- Professional 3D ArchViz workloads, rendering in MODO (CPU/GPU hybrid renderer, mainly CPU oriented though)

- CS:GO/Guild Wars 2 mainly

Other details:

- Would like to upgrade asap (aka. as soon as hardware becomes available)

 

Here are the parts currently in my shopping cart (prices are in euro rounded up to the nearest euro) :

CPU: Ryzen 9 5900x (579.-) paired with the classic trusty Noctua NH-D15 (95.-)

GPU: MSI RTX 3080 Ventus 3X 10G OC (759.-) or ASUS TUF RTX 3080 10G GAMING (749.-)

MOBO: MSI MAG x570 TOMAHAWK WIFI (219.-) or ASUS TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (193.-)

MAIN STORAGE: 1TB WD Blue NVMe (90.-)

and now for the tricky part (at least to me)...

RAM (all 2x 16GB kits): HyperX 32GB DDR4-3200 (CL16 20-20) (118.-) or HyperX 32 GB DDR4-3600 (CL18 22-22) (148.-)

or alternatively...

Corsair 32 GB DDR4-3200 (CL16 18-18-36) (125.-) or Corsair 32 GB DDR4-3600 (CL18 22-22-42) (136.-)

or again... (can you tell this is the part I'm uncertain about yet?)

G.Skill 32 GB DDR4-3200 (CL 16 18-18-38) (127.-) or G.Skill 32 GB DDR4-3600 (CL16 19-19-39) (159.- but currently unavailable where I'm looking)

 

 

 

 

from my knowledge the faster the ram the better for zen 3 i personally go with corsair ram. but i am also abit of a corsair fan boy so take that how ya like it

[meowingtons]

6 minutes ago, ChazzerDaMan said:

From what I have heard, these perform very nicely for their price, and are the sweet spot for Zen 3.

Do you happen to know if they're single or dual rank? I'd probably be looking to upgrade from 32GB to 64GB pretty early on down the line, so do you think the 2x16GB kit is also a solid choice?

 

4 minutes ago, leonardmartin29 said:

from my knowledge the faster the ram the better for zen 3

True, but judging from some discussions on Reddit, and a Gamers Nexus video, it appears to be a bit more complicated than that.

 

[leonardmartin29]

1 minute ago, meowingtons said:

Do you happen to know if they're single or dual rank? I'd probably be looking to upgrade from 32GB to 64GB pretty early on down the line, so do you think the 2x16GB kit is also a solid choice?

 

True, but judging from some discussions on Reddit, and a Gamers Nexus video, it appears to be a bit more complicated than that.

 

yea i havnt paid to much attention to it to much but just what i heard. first make sure its dual channel (dont know how many people here forget to get dual channel)

then id say go with once again i repeat i like corsair ram and for zen 3 i personally would go with a 2x16gb 3600 mhz kit in your brand of choice. i recently built a 10850k system and put 2x16 3200mhz ram with the corsair vengeance lpx lineup

[meowingtons]

3 minutes ago, leonardmartin29 said:

yea i havnt paid to much attention to it to much but just what i heard. first make sure its dual channel (dont know how many people here forget to get dual channel)

then id say go with once again i repeat i like corsair ram and for zen 3 i personally would go with a 2x16gb 3600 mhz kit in your brand of choice. i recently built a 10850k system and put 2x16 3200mhz ram with the corsair vengeance lpx lineup

Alright, thank you for your input.

[ABBDVD]

Just performance wise you would generally want to optimize timings and have high frequency. So CL16 at 3600MHz (the Crucial Ballistix one) should generally give you more performance than CL18 at 3600MHz, or alternatively if you can find some CL14 at 3200MHz that would give you a similar benefit. But I don't think it does matter much.

@meowingtons input is good though, that apparently having 4 sticks is better for performance instead of just 2, but it does make upgrading more expensive later down the line.

[meowingtons]

22 minutes ago, ABBBDVD said:

Just performance wise you would generally want to optimize timings and have high frequency. So CL16 at 3600MHz (the Crucial Ballistix one) should generally give you more performance than CL18 at 3600MHz, or alternatively if you can find some CL14 at 3200MHz that would give you a similar benefit. But I don't think it does matter much.

@meowingtons input is good though, that apparently having 4 sticks is better for performance instead of just 2, but it does make upgrading more expensive later down the line.

Thank you for your response. I think CL16 @ 3600MHz will be what I end up going with, but I'm still a little confused whether or not I should be looking at single or dual rank DIMMs if I end up going for 4 sticks of 16GB.

 

 

I've seen one person make this claim, but my knowledge isn't good enough to judge how accurate it is.

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by meowingtons
Added additional information with screenshot regarding ranks per channel.

[ChazzerDaMan]

22 minutes ago, meowingtons said:

Thank you for your response. I think CL16 @ 3600MHz will be what I end up going with, but I'm still a little confused whether or not I should be looking at single or dual rank DIMMs if I end up going for 4 sticks of 16GB.

 

 

I've seen one person make this claim, but my knowledge isn't good enough to judge how accurate it is.

 

I believe the Crucial Ballistix 2x16GB DIMMs are Dual-rank

[meowingtons]

23 minutes ago, ChazzerDaMan said:

I believe the Crucial Ballistix 2x16GB DIMMs are Dual-rank

 

Hmmm okay. So if I'm understanding what I'm reading in the threads regarding the Gamers Nexus video correctly, that's perfect for if I decide to stick to 32GB with only two DIMMs, but if I want to upgrade to 64GB I should actually be looking at single rank modules?

 

A comment posted on the Gamers Nexus video regarding 4 vs. 2 DIMMs:

Edited November 8, 2020 by meowingtons
Added reference comment regarding ranks per channel.

[Deli]

1 hour ago, meowingtons said:

 

Hmmm okay. So if I'm understanding what I'm reading in the threads regarding the Gamers Nexus video correctly, that's perfect for if I decide to stick to 32GB with only two DIMMs, but if I want to upgrade to 64GB I should actually be looking at single rank modules?

Most of the 4x16GB RAM would be dual rank.

[meowingtons]

18 minutes ago, Deli said:

Most of the 4x16GB RAM would be dual rank.

 

It would appear so. That's a little unfortunate.

[Deli]

2 minutes ago, meowingtons said:

 

It would appear so. That's a little unfortunate.

Why?

[meowingtons]

Just now, Deli said:

Why?

 

Well supposedly, going off of the information from the comments I've been reading, the 5900x (or any 5k series chip) would perform better with 4 single rank modules, wouldn't it?

[Deli]

1 minute ago, meowingtons said:

 

Well supposedly, going off of the information from the comments I've been reading, the 5900x (or any 5k series chip) would perform better with 4 single rank modules, wouldn't it?

No.

 

4 single rank > 2 single rank

2 dual rank > 4 single rank

2 dual rank = 4 dual rank

[ABBDVD]

2 hours ago, meowingtons said:

Thank you for your response. I think CL16 @ 3600MHz will be what I end up going with, but I'm still a little confused whether or not I should be looking at single or dual rank DIMMs if I end up going for 4 sticks of 16GB.

 

 

I've seen one person make this claim, but my knowledge isn't good enough to judge how accurate it is.

 

Definitely out of my depth here. Gamers Nexus using 8GB sticks would probably mean it's single rank per stick, so 2 per channel, but I'm guessing as I can't even find that info about the Trident Z 3200MHz CL14 on the G.Skill product page.

I also don't recall rank being mentioned in the video.

[meowingtons]

1 minute ago, ABBBDVD said:

Definitely out of my depth here. Gamers Nexus using 8GB sticks would probably mean it's single rank per stick, so 2 per channel, but I'm guessing as I can't even find that info about the Trident Z 3200MHz CL14 on the G.Skill product page.

I also don't recall rank being mentioned in the video.

They forgot to mention ranks in the video, but apparently they're the main factor as the other comment I posted as a screenshot above indicates:

[meowingtons]

11 minutes ago, Deli said:

No.

 

4 single rank > 2 single rank

2 dual rank > 4 single rank

2 dual rank = 4 dual rank

 

Oh, okay. I interpreted it as 4 single rank = 2 dual rank, meaning that 4 dual rank modules would be less effective.

 

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by meowingtons
Added comment screenshot for reference.

[Deli]

9 minutes ago, ABBBDVD said:

Definitely out of my depth here. Gamers Nexus using 8GB sticks would probably mean it's single rank per stick, so 2 per channel, but I'm guessing as I can't even find that info about the Trident Z 3200MHz CL14 on the G.Skill product page.

I also don't recall rank being mentioned in the video.

Near the end of the video, Steve mentions he talked with Wendal of Level 1 tech. It seems the two sticks dual rank is better or equal to four sticks of single rank.

[meowingtons]

4 minutes ago, Deli said:

Near the end of the video, Steve mentions he talked with Wendal of Level 1 tech. It seems the two sticks dual rank is better or equal to four sticks of single rank.

 

This is what I was gathering from the comments on Reddit, and the video, leading me to believe that 4x single rank 16GB sticks would outperform 4x dual rank 16GB sticks because the dual rank sticks (if there are 4 of them) wouldn't be able to make use of the "interleaved mode" the other comment was talking about.

[Deli]

4 minutes ago, meowingtons said:

 

This is what I was gathering from the comments on Reddit, and the video, leading me to believe that 4x single rank 16GB sticks would outperform 4x dual rank 16GB sticks because the dual rank sticks (if there are 4 of them) wouldn't be able to make use of the "interleaved mode" the other comment was talking about.

If you need 4x16Gb, 64GB RAM. That means most likely you need it for work, not gaming. If you need that much RAM, there is no alternative. Or maybe 2x 32Gb? I have 2 x 32Gb 3400MHz in my rig now with a 3900X now. Plan to upgrade to 5950X soon.

[meowingtons]

9 minutes ago, Deli said:

If you need 4x16Gb, 64GB RAM. That means most likely you need it for work, not gaming. If you need that much RAM, there is no alternative. Or maybe 2x 32Gb? I have 2 x 32Gb 3400MHz in my rig now with a 3900X now. Plan to upgrade to 5950X soon.

 

Yes, unfortunately I won't get very far with my work if I'm only using 16GB.

 

I found these but am either too tired to find the specs, or they've not made public whether or not these are single rank DIMMs.

[Deli]

4 minutes ago, meowingtons said:

 

Yes, unfortunately I won't get very far with my work if I'm only using 16GB.

 

I found these but am either too tired to find the specs, or they've not made public whether or not these are single rank DIMMs.

32GB stick is always dual rank.

[meowingtons]

6 minutes ago, Deli said:

32GB stick is always dual rank.

 

Oh, alright. I guess I'll just settle for whichever is cheaper then, 4x16GB or 2x32GB. Thank you for the help.