Well, I'm almost at the buying stage, and I've pretty much got every other part sorted, it's just the final decision about the RAM now. I've found Corsair and Patriot 6GB sets for an i7 system, both at 1600MHz and latencies of 9-9-9-24. They're both Intel certified, XMP ready, etc etc. The Patriot is a whole £20 cheaper, plus it's Patriot's so called Gaming/OCers range, whereas with the Corsair it's the regular XMS3, not the Dominator. So, should I go for the high-end pitched Patriot, or the regular Corsair? BTW, the Mobo I'll be using is the Asus P6T Deluxe, and for the CPU an i7 920 (OCed to as high as possible). Thanks in advance.
I'm yet to use either, actually. So far only used OCZ and Kingston, so I'm still pretty much reserving my judgement. And as to saving £20, who wouldn't want to? But if that's how much it costs for reliability, then so be it.
It'll be the same stuff underneath and both have lifetime warranties - it depends what you like in terms of heatspreaders really. I've run the 1800MHz Patriot we reviewed the other day in a P6T fine. Save £20 imo.
+1 Corsair... Though I couldn't give you a reason why. I would chose them if given the opportunity due to brand loyalty to a very strong company that makes killer products, but the reality is the memory is more or less identical, and the choice is 100% up to you.
I went for the 6GB Patriot 12800 kit in my new i7 system, mainly because it was in stock (the £20 cheaper was a bonus!) and it runs fine. Looks cool with the blue heat spreader too! Les
And then another contender comes in. I've just found the OCZ Gold Edition 1600MHz for the same price as the Corsair, running latencies of 8-8-8-24. They're not XMP certified, but they are 1 clock faster than both contenders. Worth it, or not?
this has been the sole deciding factor in all my ram purchases. i spend weeks picking out the right components, obsessing over every little detail in the motherboard and graphics card and case and processor, and even something as banal as the PSU. then i go and buy whatever ram looks the prettiest.
1 clock faster? Any of them should tune right down - I've got 9-9-9- 1333 stuff here doing 5-5-5-10-1T 1066 on P6T and X58 Eclipse. Whatever floats your boat - price would be my most important factor tbh. Tbh, I really don't like the look of OCZ's XTCs, especially the Gold. They're essentially plastic ffs.
Whoa, I didn't know DDR3 is that good with timings! Do you remember DDR2 has trouble getting 1 clock faster when you decrease the frequency from 1066 to 800 for example.
Well, I'm going to go for the Patriot 6GB. They're the best priced, and I'm yet to hear anything bad about this model, and I've done a good few days research on just which RAM modules to get. Thanks for all the help though, I'll report back (hopefully on my new PC) with how it's going .
