Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P Rev 1.03 - what's good @ 16 GB?

Gents,

I'm inches and Goal away from jumping into a "new" Gamer box for my son, Jeff. (We are re-using a relatively recent Corsair PSU, DVD Drive, & the Case).

Based on the old cost effective evaluation (what's affordable Versus what features) I've pretty much settled in on a Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P Rev 1.03 Motherboard and an Intel i5 2500K CPU. Jeff's headed to a nVidia 560Ti Graphics Card (He can't afford a i7 / 580 system so this will have to do for 3 years or so...). We bought a 1TB Seagate Barracuda (SATA 3) yesterday as their price keeps climbing with all the supply side issues and inventories are shrinking. That only leaves an SSD (for Intel ® Smart Response Technology) and DDR3 Ram. (I'm partial to Corsair.)

The Vendor has Quoted me (at my insistance Corsair) a 16 GB Vengeance Kit => CMZ16GXM4A1600C9. Memory Finder suggests only 8 Gigs of:

Enthusiast => CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9

Overclocker => CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8

Highest Density => CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9

We are going for a Win 7 64 Bit OS which can use all 16 Gigs. The rational for more Ram now was so we wouldn't have any Question of compatibility later (been there - done that :[pouts:), and the system should run better with 16 Gigs.

Both the MB & CPU are Clockable (as is the video card to some degree) but the CMZ16GXM4A1600C9 Ram seems a bit slow to the MB spec => Support for DDR3 2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules. I used Corsair's Memory Finder but it doesn't list any 16 Gig Kits with a faster clock speed or better Latency.

Am I headed down the right road? What would you do? Thanks for the assist.:cool:

It will depend on what CPU you plan to use and if you want to over clock or not but DDR1333 is the rated speed for this chipset and anything over that would be over clocking technically

Ram Guy,

Thanks for the response but as I said above "I've pretty much settled in on a Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P Rev 1.03 Motherboard and an Intel i5 2500K CPU. " (Bolding is new)

I'd like to ensure the 16 Gigs of RAM can go to rated speed (2133) if my son needs to OC as the Games take more resources. Will the 16 GB Vengeance Kit => CMZ16GXM4A1600C9 do the trick?

Chances are that that I-5 wont be able to hit 2133mhz without some serious overclocking and cooling as well. If a MB states that it will support mamory bandwidth in no means guarantees that the memory controller in the CPU will handle that high of a memory overclock.

Games today and even in the near future wont benefit from more than 6-8 gigs as it stands now. And the speeds between lets say 1866 and 1600mhz are slim. Not even enough to notice without running a bench mark.

I would keep it simple and go with either a 1600 or 1866mmhz Vengeance Kit. If you find out that your CPU will not run 1866mhz then you can always down clock and run them at 1600mhz.Especially if you plan on overclocking the cpu. As you CPU clock goes up you will find out that you will have to drop your memory overclock to gain stability

For ex. My I-7 920 can run 1866mhz at stock clock speed of 2.66ghz. But at 4.2ghz overclock i can only get my RAM to run at 1600mhz without having BSOD' or becoming extremely unstable

Thanks for the inputs Gents. ;):

I ended up moving to a Black Friday Sale (a deal I couldn't refuse) on an Asus P8Z68-V-LE Motherboard & Intel I-52500K. I bought Corsair's CMZ16GX3M4X1600C9 Kit along with a Gigabyte GTX 560 Video Card. I paid list on the memory and there was no rebate. I just like Corsair enough to pay full retail. (Maybe I'm crazy but I couldn't go with others who were 50% of the price.)

I grabbed an SSD from another vendor, to try out Intel's Smart Response Technology, and it all seems to be married quite well.

My son loves the Gamer Box now.:biggrin: