Need help from you X99 experts

[MuffinManDan]

Hello to any X99 experts that might be out there! I'm building my first X99 PC for my boss as his replacement workstation. He needs a new PC by yesterday as his aging iMac is dying. Naturally I, the only PC builder in the office, didn't hesitate before offering to spec out and build him a replacement to the likeness of other existing PC workstations he has. After going through the build process in my head while buying the parts, it dawned on me that I'm not sure how to install the memory I purchased in the optimal configuration. The board is this: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/7q38TW/evga-motherboard-131hee095kr // User manual part 1: https://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/131-HE-E095_Part1_v2.pdf // User manual part 2: https://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/131-HE-E095_Part2.pdf

 

It has four slots, but I purchased only two DIMMs of RAM deliberately so he can upgrade to 64GB down the road should it ever become necessary. My question is this: what slots should be populated with the two sticks of RAM I bought to run in dual-channel mode properly? I can't find a straight answer anywhere, but my best guess after doing some digging is that you need to populate the odd slots first, which would be the outermost slots.

 

 

[adams]

I thought you just put it in 2 of the matching colour slots (or in this case, one in each couple of ram slots, just keep the side the same).

 

So on the left 2 slots, choose one side and put one stick in (e.g right) then on the right 2 slots put the ram stick in the right slot of those two.

 

Hope this helps!

[themctipers]

what is he using it for? highly recommend ryzen just to save some money  

 

you check in the manual to see, and populate those two preferred slots. usually its slot 2 and 4 (left to right)

[Droidbot]

Outermost. If that doesn't work, go for the middle ones. 

Enable it in UEFI as well. 

[Muffinmanx2]

If he was running on an old iMac for this long, I doubt that he needs this much overkill. I agree with the Ryzen suggestion. Oh, Pg 13 of the first manual has your answer, and nobody needs 64 Gb of Ram for office work.

 

[Zyndo]

20 minutes ago, Muffinmanx2 said:

Oh, Pg 13 of the first manual has your answer

Did you even look at page 13? because the answer definitely isn't there lol

 

33 minutes ago, MuffinManDan said:

My question is this: what slots should be populated with the two sticks of RAM I bought to run in dual-channel mode properly?

with this motherboard your chosen DIMM placements shouldn't matter. As a general rule of thumb, one should use the outside slots when available, but it probably won't really matter all that much if you don't on this particular motherboard**, and most motherboards/MC's in general nowadays are robust enough to deal with improperly configured memory just fine.

 

**Normally, there are 2 DIMM's slots per memory channel, resulting in 4 DIMM slots on a dual channel board and 8 slots on a quad channel board. RAM placement on a board like that can and is very important as placing your memory in the wrong slots can cause issues with channel configurations and RAM capacities/speeds and whatnot. A screw-up in that area will usually result in system instability (rather than not working outright) or a loss of performance (often a result of running with fewer memory channels than you should). Seeing as your motherboard is Quad Channel, and there is only 4 slots for memory, this means that each slot carries a single channel (rather than two slots carrying a channel together). As a result, there is no memory pairing or any real need to pay attention to channel configurations since any DIMM you install will be working on a separate memory channel compared to any others, and with how smart motherboards are nowadays there shouldn't be any issue to which channels are active and assigned tasks.

[MuffinManDan]

2 hours ago, themctipers said:

what is he using it for? highly recommend ryzen just to save some money  

 

you check in the manual to see, and populate those two preferred slots. usually its slot 2 and 4 (left to right)

Unfortunately, Ryzen isn't widely accepted in the professional market as a viable alternative to Intel. I'm aware of the savings, but most businesses simply opt for peace of mind and go with what's been tested most between other, similar businesses. I didn't want to push such a new platform on him when he already has invested in other X99 systems and knows they work well.

[MuffinManDan]

2 hours ago, Muffinmanx2 said:

If he was running on an old iMac for this long, I doubt that he needs this much overkill. I agree with the Ryzen suggestion. Oh, Pg 13 of the first manual has your answer, and nobody needs 64 Gb of Ram for office work.

 

No they don't, but maybe in 5 years we'll want it. We're an architecture firm, so we need more resources for renderings and running several large programs at once. Ryzen is too consumer-oriented and we can't wait for Threadripper unfortunately.

[Limecat86]

3 hours ago, MuffinManDan said:

Hello to any X99 experts that might be out there! I'm building my first X99 PC for my boss as his replacement workstation. He needs a new PC by yesterday as his aging iMac is dying. Naturally I, the only PC builder in the office, didn't hesitate before offering to spec out and build him a replacement to the likeness of other existing PC workstations he has. After going through the build process in my head while buying the parts, it dawned on me that I'm not sure how to install the memory I purchased in the optimal configuration. The board is this: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/7q38TW/evga-motherboard-131hee095kr // User manual part 1: https://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/131-HE-E095_Part1_v2.pdf // User manual part 2: https://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/131-HE-E095_Part2.pdf

 

It has four slots, but I purchased only two DIMMs of RAM deliberately so he can upgrade to 64GB down the road should it ever become necessary. My question is this: what slots should be populated with the two sticks of RAM I bought to run in dual-channel mode properly? I can't find a straight answer anywhere, but my best guess after doing some digging is that you need to populate the odd slots first, which would be the outermost slots.

 

 

Well manual says only to populate slot 1 first. The second stick can be placed anywhere else since this board only has 1 slot per channel.

[DrMikeNZ]

It shouldn't matter what RAM slots to use on a 4-slot quad channel board which would be why they have very little information on it, although I would use the outermost slots.

3 hours ago, themctipers said:

what is he using it for? highly recommend ryzen just to save some money

For a work system? It isn't stable enough IMO.

Ryzen crashes pretty hard without leaving crash dumps for diagnostic purposes, making it next to impossible to resolve issues.

While I am happy to use Ryzen at home, I still wouldn't get one for a work system yet.

[Muffinmanx2]

18 hours ago, MuffinManDan said:

No they don't, but maybe in 5 years we'll want it. We're an architecture firm, so we need more resources for renderings and running several large programs at once. Ryzen is too consumer-oriented and we can't wait for Threadripper unfortunately.

You did not specify what kind of work this was for, so I assumed that it was just standard accounting. 

[MuffinManDan]

On 6/21/2017 at 6:58 PM, Muffinmanx2 said:

You did not specify what kind of work this was for, so I assumed that it was just standard accounting. 

Well, you know what they say about assuming.

[MuffinManDan]

On 6/21/2017 at 0:43 AM, DrMikeNZ said:

It shouldn't matter what RAM slots to use on a 4-slot quad channel board which would be why they have very little information on it, although I would use the outermost slots.

For a work system? It isn't stable enough IMO.

Ryzen crashes pretty hard without leaving crash dumps for diagnostic purposes, making it next to impossible to resolve issues.

While I am happy to use Ryzen at home, I still wouldn't get one for a work system yet.

That's what I've been hearing too. I really hope they crack the professional market with Threadripper.

[MuffinManDan]

On 6/21/2017 at 0:41 AM, Limecat86 said:

Well manual says only to populate slot 1 first. The second stick can be placed anywhere else since this board only has 1 slot per channel.

Thanks for the clarification! That's the clearest answer anyone has given me.

[Muffinmanx2]

1 hour ago, MuffinManDan said:

Well, you know what they say about assuming.

Lol, yeah. I was just trying to save your boss a little cash on a business rig. I see people build over the top PCs all of the time and only utilize it for programs like Quicken. I'm not here to sell you stuff, I would rather help my fellow forum posters save some money. I guess that makes me an ass

[MuffinManDan]

7 minutes ago, Muffinmanx2 said:

Lol, yeah. I was just trying to save your boss a little cash on a business rig. I see people build over the top PCs all of the time and only utilize it for programs like Quicken. I'm not here to sell you stuff, I would rather help my fellow forum posters save some money. I guess that makes me an ass

It's all good, I appreciate the suggestion. If nothing else it's great that there are other systems to suggest now that can compete with Intel.

[Muffinmanx2]

So what processor is going in this? any GPU's? Ryzen is pretty beastly in the core count department, so it matches Intel's quality with quantity. AMD is my choice for content creation platforms. (I am still using the 2-year old Intel rig in my profile) 

11 minutes ago, MuffinManDan said:

It's all good, I appreciate the suggestion. If nothing else it's great that there are other systems to suggest now that can compete with Intel.

  

[MuffinManDan]

On 6/23/2017 at 9:18 AM, Muffinmanx2 said:

So what processor is going in this? any GPU's? Ryzen is pretty beastly in the core count department, so it matches Intel's quality with quantity. AMD is my choice for content creation platforms. (I am still using the 2-year old Intel rig in my profile) 

  

It has a 6800k and a GTX 1060. I just finished building it yesterday and I set it all up today. Should be a reliable workhorse for years to come.

[rockon5622]

Why not a xeon? ECC memory is nice.

[DildorTheDecent]

Slots 1 and 3. Looks like memory always likes the odds and evens to be matched. 

[MuffinManDan]

On 6/29/2017 at 11:51 AM, rockon5622 said:

Why not a xeon? ECC memory is nice.

It's nice, but investing in ECC has the best ROI when it's in a server configuration, not and end-user workstation. My boss is also in need of a new file server, so we'll probably go with Xeon or Threadripper for that, depending on how thst release goes.