So I've been designing my computer based off of the 2010 July Buyers guide, and reading a few reviews online of Memory, I came across a GSkill rep that pointed me to the i7 spec sheets. According to intel, the i5-700 series supports DDR3 1066, and 1333 Memory (page 11 of the Intel® Core™ i7-800 and i5-700 Processor Series Datasheet - Volume 1) Also according to intel, the i7-900 series supports DDR3 800 and 1066 only. (page 7 of the Intel® Core™ i7-900 Desktop Processor Extreme Edition Series and Intel® Core™ i7-900 Desktop Processor Series on 32-nm Process Datasheet, Volume 1 Suffice it to say, I'm a bit miffed that I'm being told to buy (and shell out extra cash) for DDR3 1600 memory that my processor won't even support. Can anyone explain to me why this is happening in the buying guide? I'm hoping I'm just misunderstanding something.
The memory has a rated potential of that speed, but will default to what ever the CPU requires initially. The 1600MHz gives an overclocking headroom
if you're not going to overclock then of course what you're saying is true however, whilst i've never looked at the buyer's guide, a quick check & it explicitly states - "As previously stated, we like having 4GB of memory in our PCs, and we’ve chosen 1,600MHz DDR3 to give us a bit of headroom for overclocking the CPU. For example, if we wanted to aim for a 3.6GHz overclock, we’d use a Base Clock of 180MHz (as 180 x 20 = 3,600). If we’d opted for 1,333MHz memory, we’d have to use the 6x memory strap with this Base Clock, which would give us a memory frequency of 1,080MHz, which is a touch slow. With the 1,600MHz memory, we can safely use the 8x memory strap and have our memory run at a more healthy 1,440MHz. We wouldn’t recommend overclocking 1,333MHz memory to 1,440MHz for everyday use unless you really know your DRAM." Now, whilst i may not personally agree with certain conclusions & methodologies that bittech arrive at/use with within reviews, this is both sound advice generally & clearly states the rationales as to why buying memory that's rated to a higher MHz is a good idea if you're going to be overclocking.... ...& you could easily under that it's not necessary if you're not going to overclock.
Both 1156 and 1366 will run at 1,600MHz at stock speeds - there will be BIOS options available, or failing that, Intel XMP which is an extra setting in the memory that allows automatic memory overclocking to its rated values. It's very, very easy to use, but you must see if the memory includes it before buying. In fact, this Gigabyte X58A-UD7 with Core i7 940 I have in front of me has memory dividers up to 18x - offering 2,400MHz DDR3 (actually impossible on an LGA1366 CPU without copious voltage). I've got 1,600MHz Crucial memory in it, runs it all day every day. Intel doesn't officially ratify speeds as above 1,333MHz because are not JEDEC and not guranateed to run 24/7 stable on every board. If you're buying a quality board and quality memory though then it will be completely stable. I run an i7-860 at 1,600MHz on an ASUS board with 8GB of memory (4 DIMM slots full) all day everyday Do you have the name of the G.Skill rep? I'd love to know.
Yep ... most of the new builds we talk about here use 1600MHz memory. Mine runs at that speed every day also.
You sure about this? My dad bought a scan i7 bundle that came with 1600MHz RAM and his Asus mobo has options for 1600MHz RAM but upon selecting that it came up with overclocking failed and the description said unavailable unless the CPU has an unlocked multiplier. Also on my GD65 when I enabled XMP all it done was overclock my base clock to 160MHz and used the 10x multi my CPU supports therefor also overclocking my CPU but that's not what I wanted at the time with a stock heatsink Also the i5-750 doesn't support a 12x RAM multi whereas the i7 LGA1156's do.
Just quoting for truth basically as a independant from Bit-tech who will say quite openly that 1600MHz is the most popular memory sold at CCL for the Core platforms and will work fine in pretty much any "top brand" motherboard. Kingston's most popular HyperX SKUS are the 1600MHz 4GB & 6GB kits which says something. My personal machine at home has 1866MHz Corsair Dominator GT in it running at 1600MHz with tight timings as I find this offers the best performance with my chip.
