HAM build ram question

HayuPhukmiWife · December 15, 2023

Budget (including currency): Selling my body - Limitless pesos

Country: Canada

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Office work and playing whatever I want on max settings forever

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc):

Existing is a i7 17077k in a msi mpg z490 gaming carbon wifi board. xpg spectrix m.2, adata swordfish m.2, 3 samsung ssds that are old AF. 32gb (2x16 DDR4 3600) Gskill TridentZ, asus rog rtx 4090 and a corisair rm1200x PSU

So the problem was the last item there. the corisair psu I bought didnt have the 16pin. I dont have feedback from my gpu, and its coil whining my psu by overdrawing. So I got work to approve some .... upgrades (love my job)

Upgrades include an i9 14900kf and rog strix z790-E gaming wifi. an asus rog 1000w psu that has a 16 pin and some g.skill tz5 rgb 7200 (16gbx2)

So obviously this thing is HAM. My question to the world, should I drop another 200 on another 32gb of ram? and if so should i return this and buy 2x32? i think the store only has slower ram in 32. so if i wanna keep the 7200, im stuck buying 4 pieces. otherwise im down to like 6500 or some such crap.

thoughts?

RONOTHAN## · December 15, 2023

1 minute ago, HayuPhukmiWife said:

Existing is a i7 17077k

Is that a typo for 10700K? Not that it really matters though

2 minutes ago, HayuPhukmiWife said:

so if i wanna keep the 7200, im stuck buying 4 pieces.

7200 won't work with 4 DIMMs. There's a handful of people who have gotten it working, but even then most of the ones I've seen haven't had stress tests done to the point I'd consider "adequate" and they put days, if not weeks of effort into getting it to that point. Even on 2x32GB or 2x48GB, it's not quite as difficult, but it's still a nightmare to get working.

Even 7200 with just 2x16GB can have issues, though admittedly on 14th gen there aren't as many of the garbage tier memory controllers so it's a bit less likely to struggle. If you just want more RAM for the sake of more RAM, look into the 2x24GB kits, since those at least have the advantage of being slightly more likely to work at high frequencies (7200 with 4x24 or 2x48GB is still incredibly difficult though).

Besides, 6400 is by no means "crap," it's largely considered the point of diminishing returns, where performance benefits stop scaling that fast. I personally will almost never recommend getting a kit higher than 6400 for 13th/14th gen, since that's the highest XMP I trust to work on 99.999% of CPUs/motherboards, and if you really want faster memory speeds, the kit itself will be capable of 8000+ and the main limiting factor for its speed will be the motherboard and memory controller quality. It will take nearly the same amount of effort to get a 7200 rated kit to work at 7200 as it will to get a 6400 rated kit working at 7200, so why spend the extra money on a 7200 rated kit that there's a chance you'll have to lower the memory frequency on to get stable?

HayuPhukmiWife · December 15, 2023

Hey that's good knowledge I did my have before. So stability will be better under loads with a 6400 or something? Sounds like i should keep my 32 for now and see how it goes. I'm not really overclocking or anything but have the cooling for it. I'm more of a press the turbo button kinda guy. Should I look at swapping my 7xxx for some 6xxx 32gb sticks?

You seem to have lots of knowledge I don't lol. Would you call 64gb of ddr5 a flex? Or a good ceiling for a 4090 and i9? I've read that 32gb may be a limiting factor for the card.

HayuPhukmiWife · December 15, 2023

Jesus can't spell.

Did not have*

RONOTHAN## · December 15, 2023

9 minutes ago, HayuPhukmiWife said:

So stability will be better under loads with a 6400 or something?

Depends on how lucky you are with the silicon lottery. Some people have been able to run DDR5 8000 at XMP, while others can't get above 6800 XMP with the same motherboard. 6400 has nearly no shot of being unstable, while 7200 has a small but possible chance of being unstable.

12 minutes ago, HayuPhukmiWife said:

Sounds like i should keep my 32 for now and see how it goes.

That's probably what I'd do, yes.

12 minutes ago, HayuPhukmiWife said:

Should I look at swapping my 7xxx for some 6xxx 32gb sticks?

I wouldn't unless you really need the capacity.

12 minutes ago, HayuPhukmiWife said:

Would you call 64gb of ddr5 a flex?

I'm not really aware of that many people who consider tons of DDR5 a "flex." With DDR5, the phrase "more RAM, more problems" is very much a thing, so while you can get 64GB, 96GB, or even 192GB of RAM, having that much is more likely to have issues, especially at high frequencies.

17 minutes ago, HayuPhukmiWife said:

I've read that 32gb may be a limiting factor for the card.

If you're doing AI or heavy video production, sure, but for a gaming/office work system 32GB is plenty. If you really want more RAM, again look into the 2x24GB options that are available as they're a good compromise between working reliably (in fact the high speed 2x24GB sticks are the easiest sticks to run at high speeds if you have a BIOS revision optimized for them) and high capacity. Plus for any given speed they're about half way between the price of a 2x16GB and 2x32GB kit, so not too expensive either.

Also make sure to quote so we get a notification, I just happened to come back here and see this.

HayuPhukmiWife · December 15, 2023

2 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

If you really want more RAM, again look into the 2x24GB options that are available as they're a good compromise between working reliably (in fact the high speed 2x24GB sticks are the easiest sticks to run at high speeds if you have a BIOS revision optimized for them)

Hey thanks for all the info, I'll look into the 24gb a bit more. I've already updated bios and checked out the chip and ram together, but haven't installed anything yet. Not sure if the 16 are returnable anymore, so I'll have to see what happens. Again. great info, thank you sir. this was super helpful. IT sounds like it'll be fine, however, its something to consider.