i7 3930k memory size and speed

J

jimbojames

New member
Hi,

I've just been looking at the details on the i7 3930k and the intel website states the following:

Memory Specifications

Max Memory Size (dependent on memory type) = 64 GB

Memory Types = DDR3-1066/1333/1600

# of Memory Channels = 4
Click to expand...

Where it says "# of Memory Channels = 4" does that mean I can use quad channel RAM or that I can only use 4 RAM slots on an ASUS Rampage IV Extreme mobo?

Also - am I limited to "DDR3-1066/1333/1600"?

Thanks in advance,

James
 
yes it's quad channel memory and you can use up to 2-8G sticks on each channel, for a total of 64Gb

Speed wise thats all that Intel supports directly, but most motherboard vendors adds extra multiplyers for the memory, so you can get up to 2400Mhz memory moduels.

Not many of this generation of CPUs can hold that frequency, making 2133Mhz the best choice for fast memory, 1866Mhz will cost less and will probably be the sweet spot, 1600Mhz is the most common and dirt cheap.

If you are running Windows 7 Home Premium you will be capped of at 16Gb, so a cheap 4x4Gb kit is best, for all other versions you can run up to whatever you can aford.
 
I like the look of these

Would there be any disadvantage in going for them (other than cost)

I chose those as they allow me to go to 64GB in the future but is there any point having that much RAM for gaming?

Would I be just as well going for these
 
then if your running a 64bit operating system i would recommend a 1600mhz 8gig kit or a 1600mhz 16gig kit these are fairly cheap around £45 for a 8gig and £65 for a 16gig kit a 16gig kit imho will prob be over kill for gaming so i would go for a cheaper 8gig kit and put the rest towards a better gpu
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you really dont need that much ram for gaming save the money for a better gpu plus if you get 1600mhz you can always overclock it
 
yeah it means they are guarented to go up to that speed on a certain board there will be a list of boards that they test them on but the board your looking at should not have a problem hitting the speeds
 
also bare in mind that to get the speeds and timings that the ram state you will have to go in to the bios and set them manually or at least set up the intel xmp to hit the speeds but usually this comes with slacker timings than you can get if you have a little play about
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Although it says it has only 4 channels you can run two sticks of RAM on each channel. Just like you can run 4 sticks of memory on a Sandy Bridge 1155 platform that only has Dual Channel.

The maximum memory support on the 3930K is supposedly 64GB but I'm willing to bet it will boot with 128GB if you had 16GB sticks to attempt it. On the old 1366 platform Intel said the maximum memory support was 24GB but I got 48GB working on a UD5-X58 board and a Core i7 920 so I don't think their RAM limits are hard more like they don't support memory above that amount but it might work if the planets align
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You will however get much higher RAM support if you drop a XEON in to your motherboard. I believe they support 144GB of RAM in the LGA 2011 socket.

To run RAM beyond 1600MHz you'll need to do some tweaking as it's not supported out of the box. However if you get RAM with XMP profiles (which most high performance memory these days support) you'll be good to go once you load the profile in the BIOS.
 
if your only gonna be gaming on it i would save yourself some money and go down the 1155 route there are some real bargins to be had you wil save a fortune on both cpu and ram and spend the extra on your dream gpu
 
I have a ASUS X79 deluxe with 32gb of 1600 ram running in XMP. I would say 32gb is overkill for a gaming rig but it does allow for some serious multi-tasking and what I particularly like is creating a RAM disk, I make an 8 or 10gb RAM disk for super fast access times, I also cache my browser files in my RAM disk which gets wiped each time I reboot, which is a feature I like.

If you're watching the pennies I would say 16gb is more than enough. Have fun with the build, I love the 3930K it hasn't skipped a beat at anything I've thrown at it, I run mine at full load 24/7 using all 12 threads, for gaming I don't see the need for a hex core cpu and would be inclined to say go for the 1155 route and spend extra on your GPU's, but thats just my opinion
biggrin.png
 
Solar said:
I have a ASUS X79 deluxe with 32gb of 1600 ram running in XMP. I would say 32gb is overkill for a gaming rig but it does allow for some serious multi-tasking and what I particularly like is creating a RAM disk, I make an 8 or 10gb RAM disk for super fast access times, I also cache my browser files in my RAM disk which gets wiped each time I reboot, which is a feature I like.

If you're watching the pennies I would say 16gb is more than enough. Have fun with the build, I love the 3930K it hasn't skipped a beat at anything I've thrown at it, I run mine at full load 24/7 using all 12 threads, for gaming I don't see the need for a hex core cpu and would be inclined to say go for the 1155 route and spend extra on your GPU's, but thats just my opinion
biggrin.png
Click to expand...

fraghappy245 said:
if your only gonna be gaming on it i would save yourself some money and go down the 1155 route there are some real bargins to be had you wil save a fortune on both cpu and ram and spend the extra on your dream gpu
Click to expand...

If it is just for gaming I would go for an 1155 system and spend the money saved on a better graphics card.
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