Dell and RAM

[Shlomo]

Hey there. Before I delve into my question, here is some data:

- I am an amateur and not a computer builder

- I am not a gamer - I am a heavy business user. I occasionally use Photoshop and Illustrator, but most often my open programs look like this: 2-3 excel workbooks, a MS word doc, 10-12 Chrome tabs, ~10 background programs, slack, outlook, a YouTube video running etc.

- I recent upgraded to a DELL Precision 5820 i9-10900X 3.7ghz (0X75JG A01 motherboard) and it has two graphics cards: (1) RX 5500XT into which I have three DP displays plugged in, and a (2) Radeon HD 7700 into which I have plugged in two extra wide 3840x2160 HDMI connected screens. (I tried converters but it would reduce the resolution). Note that dell told me that the 5500XT was not compatible and pointed to the graphics cards that come with the computer as being the only ones that are compatible.

- Dell recommends 2667 frequency RAM and here is their configuration page: https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/precision-5820-workstation/precision_5820_om_pub/memory-configuration?guid=guid-ce1561c8-88a9-45e3-bc3b-762cbb37e073&lang=en-us

- At the moment I have the S64R configuration  as shown  at the link, except that I also added 8GB 2667 in both Dimms 5 and 6 - for a total of 80GB. 

 

 

Questions:

 

1- At times, my RAM can run pretty high (85%+). My page file is 99GB.

2- I have four Vengeance RGB PRO 16GB 3GHz PC4-24000 DDR4 DIMM Unbuffered Non-ECC Desktop Memory with RGB Lighting. I understand that if I add this (and take out the 2x8GB), it would reduce the RAM speed. from the 2666 to 2400. My research online seems to indicate that more RAM is better than faster ram. Question: the additional ram is 3000 and I understand that this is overclocked - is there something that I need to do on my end to have it reach 3000? If I do, will it even matter to increase above the 2400? Is there a way to partially overclock to 2666? Also, the guy at dell (who lost creditability with me) said that having the wrong frequency of RAM will over the long haul negatively affect my system. (I will note that the fan/CPU/Ram cover doesn't fit RGB RAM - FWIW)

3- Do I even need more ram? Will it make a difference?

 

Thanks in advance!

[Dr0y]

I don't know much about server or extreme platform like you have ... but on the dell website it says that it's ecc memory that goes on that motherboard so I'm not sure if non ecc will be supported and if it is I'm really not sure you could/should mix ecc and non ecc on the same board. 

 

The best thing to do would be to have all the ram stick to be the same size and from the same batch if possible and fill all those ram slot so you can benefit from that quad channel memory goodness.  On consumer platform if you mix ram with different speed and latency the system will just run them at the lowest speed of them all and call it a day.  I'm not sure if it's the same on your platform but I don't know why it wouldn't. 

5 hours ago, Shlomo said:

Is there a way to partially overclock to 2666

I'm really not sure if that platform can overclock ram, even some module and not the others. 

 

5 hours ago, Shlomo said:

having the wrong frequency of RAM will over the long haul negatively affect my system. (I

It will affect it negatively in the way that it will run at the lowest speed, you lose some performance there but it's not suppose to damage it in any way as long as the ram is supported ... anyway with unsupported ram I'm pretty sure it won't boot and that's it. 

 

5 hours ago, Shlomo said:

Do I even need more ram? Will it make a difference?

Well if you fill 85% of your ram I would say that in the long run you might want to consider  more ram if you intend to do new task that consume more ram ... if your workload don't change and you don't fill your ram more I don't think you would benefit from more ram for now ... but I might be wrong on that one ... others will be able to guide you more.

 

5 hours ago, Shlomo said:

Note that dell told me that the 5500XT was not compatible and pointed to the graphics cards that come with the computer as being the only ones that are compatible.

If it works and the computer is able to power it properly then I don't see why it wouldn't be compatible.  They surely want to sell you a gpu there.  I had a really old lenovo that was compatible with the amd rx400 gpu lineup and the pc was just not displaying anything through the gpu and that's it.  I suppose it would do the same if your dell would not be compatible with your two gpu. 

 

 

Well I hope I could help you a bit ... I don't have much experience with those kind of platform and I'm going with the little I know to help you the best I can.  If I'm wrong about something I'm sure the others will be happy to point that out.

[Shlomo]

Thank you for your feedback.

Good to know that it wont damage my system.

Dell actually recommends non-ecc. Cant figure out which the Corsair is. https://www.corsair.com/eu/en/Categories/Products/Memory/Vengeance-PRO-RGB-Black/p/CMW32GX4M2C3000C15

will it reduce to 2400?

[Dr0y]

2 hours ago, Shlomo said:

Good to know that it wont damage my system.

it's not supposed to ... well at least on consumer platform it does not damage anything so I can't see any reason why it would be not be the same here.

 

2 hours ago, Shlomo said:

will it reduce to 2400?

if you pair it with lower speed memory I would say yes most likely ...

 

not sure if it will boot at all if you mix ecc and non-ecc

 

also populating every slot with the same memory would be best if you can.  since it's ddr4 memory and it support ecc you can probably find a bunch of stick for a good price on ebay coming from old server and such. 

[Shlomo]

Both are non-ecc.

The Corsair Ram is 3000, the other ram is 2666

[Dr0y]

they will run at 2666.  I don't think that you're missing much unless your task are really ram speed dependant.