VHC-CO-IT wrote: jetboy10 wrote: Thanks Dorothy, (sorry to you and everyone else for the jetboy name - I try to be anonymous on the web if that's even possible). The g.skill ripjaws seem to be recommended a lot around the web and it's good to know they work when you have all 8 slots filled. that's a good sign. The only downside to me is the fancy heat spreaders (I know. The mushkins I linked to has them too). I wonder why several people in this thread seems focused on LV RAM. Is this really better for consistent stability. Besides individual experiences, are there any links to where this was tested or where Intel discusses the 1.35V benefits? It runs colder. That's about it, lol. I've had nothing but reported problems with low voltage ram since some boards say they support it but then can't seem to detect it properly and send in the wrong voltage. You often times have to set the voltage and the speed and timing manually, which isn't the end of the world but it's annoying. I would stay far away from low voltage memory even if you're packing every single slot. Basically if you're not using a top notch board and power supply, the voltage could drop too low on the circuit that powers the RAM for a tiny amount of time and your RAM won't work properly. Low voltage memory is extremely sensitive to that because they already had to jump through hoops to get it to run at such a low voltage. Basically they're more sensitive to slight voltage dips. If you think heat is a problem if you've got 8 sticks in a row, it's not. They're like 2-3W each or something and most come with excessive aluminum coolers attached anyway. I've never had a problem with any RAM at standard voltage in any system ever but I also only buy from 2 vendors, both that give lifetime warranties and are known for being the absolute best. Also, someone back a ways in this thread said just the speed, not the timings are important and you should just ignore the timings. WHAT?!?!?!?! The speed is the number of cycles per second the RAM runs at and the timings are how long they take to do an operation. The lower the timings, the faster the memory. You should always get the lower timings that seem cost effective. It will get much, much higher WEI ratings and benchmark numbers if it has lower timings. People have had problems with nonstandard timing memory though not booting or not being recognized in their BIOS. Well, that's simple. Regardless, turn on XMP profiles on the motherboard or yeah, it won't work so well. Otherwise: 1. buy really good, high rated, no reported compatibility problems RAM like for example GSkill. Remember, 7 out of the 10 top rated RAM sets available for sale right now are from GSkill. 2. before you buy, look up the motherboard's QVL (qualified vendors list) which contains a list of many specific memory modules that were thoroughly tested by the manufacturer and certified to work with your board. That eliminated 100% of the problem. If your perfectly matching RAM doesn't work, it's you doing something wrong in that case. If your motherboard doesn't have QVL, you're buying the wrong brand There so many incorrect points or assumptions here it's hard to find a place to begin. 1. The 1.35V ram was spec'ed and designed for the Quad Channel Socket 2011 platform. This was not spec'ed for the 1155 platform which you are referencing issues. The issue has nothing to do with the ram and everything to do with the XMP Profiles/voltage settings the board supports with the bios. If the board does not have charts for the low voltage ram, then you cannot turn on the XMP profile for the low voltage memory. That does not mean however you cannot run the ram on those 1155 boards at all. You just have to run the ram at the base 1.5V profile that almost all of the Low Voltage ram comes with. Those detect fine. Many of the ram Manufacturers are using DDR3 1600 profiles as their base profile such as Kingston, Samsung, and others. 2. The comments on Low voltage having issues with voltage fluctuation are completely backwards. The Low Voltage ram was designed to resolve this issue with signal attenuation and voltage level issues on the bus between the memory controller in the CPU and Ram in the slots. The manufacturers use higher grade chips such as those used for DDR3 2000+ to make the low voltage chips. These are the highest grade chips in the market which also give the best stability with varying voltage levels. This information however is not common knowledge outside the memory manufacturing engineers. You have to talk to one of the engineers to know. I talk to them in Taiwan all the time. Do you? 3. Some of the Memory manufacturers are using a Hybrid model when manufacturing low voltage. They are using higher grade chips that are not as high as the DDR3 2000+ and then will raise latency timings some to ensure stability. This is a completely acceptable production method since Latency timings have little to no impact on ram/system performance in the DDR3 with the Intel Platforms. The current Dual channel performance on the Intel platforms is around 20GB/s and the Quad channel is 35GB/s. This bandwidth is so high and above what the current system requires, that the marginal difference in CL latency has little to no impact anymore. Latency was a concern in the DDR1 and DDR2 days when the ram bandwidth was under 5GB/s or 2.5GB/s. However all the testing done that I have seen by us or others shows little to no impact on high performance applications such as videoediting applications. The information you posted here is simply wrong and unfounded today. 4. Heat was most definitely an issue with the X79 platform and 1.65V ram. We tested this extensively when the platform released with many different methods. The method that displayed this issue the quickest was Pro Audio testing. The data would corrupt in the ram when playing a heavy Pro Audio plugin test that is very memory intensive. The result was complete audio distortion out of the audio interface. This showed up in all our testing with the 1.65V ram at 1600 until we cooled the memory. At that point all of the distortion went away and the test ran perfectly. This did not show up with 1.5V or 1.35V ram however. So your statement on memory and heat once again is completely inaccurate and shows a complete lack of any real world testing. Once again this was the X79/socket 2011 platform only. This had nothing to do with the 1155 platform. It also makes perfect sense if you have an understanding of electronic principles. Heat lowers resistance which lowers voltage. This is why you get signal attenuation. 5. The last comments on Non standard timings, XMP, and QVL show a text book answer without any real knowledge or experience with the problems people are running into with ram. It also shows a lack in real understanding of the ram production and component bidding market. The QVL lists were a large part of the problem. The motherboard manufacturers vary in testing method. However most test with just populating 1 or half the banks which is not completely qualifying the ram. There are many sub timing and compatibility issues that dont show up when testing with 1 stick or half the banks populated. You find this out often to late when calling the motherboard manufacturer for support and they ask you how many sticks are you populating. Then their support will say remove half or down to 1 and test again. If the problem goes away, they say contact the memory manufacturer since the issue is theirs. However when you contact the ram manufacturer they say the issue is the Motherboard manufacturer since the board wont accept the ram fully populated. They didn't test it fully populated either. You have no idea how many times I fought with different memory manufacturers I was working with to test the ram with the boards we were going to use fully populated. They have to adjust sub timings to handle that. Once again if you talked to ram engineers you would know this. Now we finally have a manufacturer who does all their testing fully populated and our issues have evaporated since then. The other issue with QVL's have to do with how often they are updated compared to how often the components in those same model ram change. The Ram bidding market is completely volatile. This means Manufacturer A may use PSC chips in 1 production run and Hynix in the next. Well the motherboard manufacturer originally QVl'ed with the PSC versions. The bios was updated for timing detection for those models based on that. However the Hynix modules require different sub timings and therefore the compatibility.detection charts will no longer work for those sticks even though their still on the QVL. I see this all of the time and contrary to your belief, most often with Gskill. Your predictions on eliminating 100% of the issues with memory timings by enabling the XMP profiles and following the QVL is once again completely false. I often do paid support and the ram manufacturer I see the most is Gskill. That is also the ram I most often have to set the timings manually because the XMP profile does not work at all and is far to aggressive. Once I set the timings manually, many times they will work. atleast at 1333 if needed. You may want to actually go through the motherboard manufacturer forums and actually see all of the XMP ram problems that are showing up. That will give a far more accurate view of the current QVL and ram issues. Posting information that is neither accurate or has zero real world testing behind it helps no one. Instead that is setting up someone who is coming to the forums for help to experience serious problems that can impact their business, lives, and reputations. This is nothing to take lightly since they are relying on people who post to share information they just dont have and really dont have time to learn. They also dont have the time outside of the profession that supports their Families or lives to learn a second. They simply hope those who have the knowledge will tell them the best way to accomplish this. I have already had several paid support clients who have been disastrously misled by miss information in this forum which has cost them thousands in paid repair costs replacing hardware, rebuilding and lost production time not to mention the impact on their business reputation. This is not something anyone should play around with and shows a complete lack of responsibility or professionalism. Those Forum readers who are following this thread, also please take heed of this. There is allot of miss information currently going on in this forum. Be very careful what you believe right now. Please verify with other sources before you act. Eric ADK
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