Ddr3 2200 = pc3 ????

[Radar]

Hey Gang,

I was recently given an old motherboard with cpu and ram already installed, the current specs are...

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H (With BIOS version F11)
CPU: i3 530
RAM: 1 x F3-12800CL9-2GBL, 1 x F3-10666CL9-4GBNT, 1 x F3-12800CL9-2GBRL, and 1 x F3-10666CL9-4GNT, ( I got those numbers using Easytune 6, so they may be off a bit).

Well, the poor sod of a thing just can't handle the load that I"m putting on it, so I've got an i7-875 ready to install, but when I started searching for RAM, I came up against the same old problem... Salespeople getting things frack to bunt.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that DDR3-???? is a speed designation, and PC3-???? is a standards designation... I keep seeing things like DDR3-19200... Has RAM really gotten up to 19.2GHz already??? I also see, (but not as often) PC3-2400, so is there a PC3-2400 standard out there?

It would be really handy to have a chart that shows both the speed and the standard so that newbies and old hands that have been out of the game for a while can tell what's what.

Have fun!

Radar =8^)

P.S. According to the mobo manual and Gigabyte's site, it has support for DDR3 2200+/1800/1600/1333/1066/800 MHz memory modules.

[Tradesman]

Yes it can be confusing, there's lots of different designators used so we'll give it a a shot, PC3 is basically a designator for the variant of DRAM

PC3 = DDR3
PC2 = DDR2
PC = DDR

next you bring up the various numbers the smaller numbers (using DDR3 as it's the current 'standard') 1066, 1333, 1600, 1866, 2133, 2400, 2600, 2666, 2800 et al indicates the frequency of the DRAM indicates (and just to add to to the confusion that's actually TWICE the true freq as this is DOUBLE Data Rate DRAM so true freq for 1600 is 800, true for 1866 is 933, etc,

The larger numbers indicate the theoretical bandwidth of the DRAM by freq, so sort of in summary

Freq DDR3 indicated Bandwidth
533 1066 8500
667 1333 10600-10666
800 1600 12800
933 1866 14900
1066 2133 17000
1200 2400 19200
1300 2600 20800
1333 2666 21300
1400 2800 22400

Some additional info on model #s is located in my info thread here:

http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=10564

Your mobo is a socket 1156 and can take up to 16GB of DRAM (up to a 4 stick by 4GB combo), and it appears you are currently running 6GB (if it is showing the model # of the sets (haven't used the Easytune on the 1156 platform recently) or 12GB if it's the individual stick model #....If moving to an 875, I'd suggest going to the 16GB max as a single 4x4GB set probably 1866/CL9, you could also try a 2133 set at either CL9 or CL10, which will require a healthy OC....could also look at 1600 sets (preferably CL8 or CL9 - a CL10 set might cost less but performance wise can be rather sluggish), 2400 is actually more than you could expect from your CPU and the Mobo - unless extremely skilled or you find just find a great price

Hope this helps, any other questions yell out

[Radar]

Hey Tradesman,

Yes it can be confusing, there's lots of different designators used so we'll give it a a shot, PC3 is basically a designator for the variant of DRAM

PC3 = DDR3
PC2 = DDR2
PC = DDR

Ok, I'm with you so far

next you bring up the various numbers the smaller numbers (using DDR3 as it's the current 'standard') 1066, 1333, 1600, 1866, 2133, 2400, 2600, 2666, 2800 et al indicates the frequency of the DRAM indicates (and just to add to to the confusion that's actually TWICE the true freq as this is DOUBLE Data Rate DRAM so true freq for 1600 is 800, true for 1866 is 933, etc,

Yeah, it always bugged me that they'd show the rated freq as double the actual freq... I know it was to show that it was comparitively twice the speed as SDR RAM, (not to be confused with SD RAM), but it was a little confusing at first.

The larger numbers indicate the theoretical bandwidth of the DRAM by freq, so sort of in summary

Freq DDR3 indicated Bandwidth
533 1066 8500
667 1333 10600-10666
800 1600 12800
933 1866 14900
1066 2133 17000
1200 2400 19200
1300 2600 20800
1333 2666 21300
1400 2800 22400

So, to see if I'm with you here, when I see PC3-8500, the actual freq is 533MHz, the effective freq (in comparison to Single Data Rate RAM) is 1066MHz, with a bandwidth of 8500Mbits/second?

And, to be sure I'm sure... DDR3-???? is the freq rating, and PC3-???? is the bandwidth rating?

Some additional info on model #s is located in my info thread here:

http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=10564

Great! Thanks for that

Your mobo is a socket 1156 and can take up to 16GB of DRAM (up to a 4 stick by 4GB combo), and it appears you are currently running 6GB (if it is showing the model # of the sets (haven't used the Easytune on the 1156 platform recently) or 12GB if it's the individual stick model #....If moving to an 875, I'd suggest going to the 16GB max as a single 4x4GB set probably 1866/CL9, you could also try a 2133 set at either CL9 or CL10, which will require a healthy OC....could also look at 1600 sets (preferably CL8 or CL9 - a CL10 set might cost less but performance wise can be rather sluggish), 2400 is actually more than you could expect from your CPU and the Mobo - unless extremely skilled or you find just find a great price

Yeah, it's 12GB of mis-matched RAM, which, according to EasyTune is running at 667MHz, which I'm guessing is actual speed, rather than comparative speed.

So, if I get a 4 x 4GB kit of 2400, say either TridentX F3-2400C9Q-16GTXD with its base settings of CL 9-11-11-31-2N 1.65V, or RipjawsZ F3-19200CL9Q-16GBZMD, with base settings of CL 9-11-11-31-2N 1.65V, I can wind them back a little so that I'm not making a BBQ, will I still get better performance than from a set of 2133/CL9's?

Hope this helps, any other questions yell out

It helps quote a bit, thank you, and will yell when I've decided which set to get

Take care,

&

Have fun!

Radar =8^)

P.S. Mods, Tradesman's reply should be stickied somewhere, as it will help a lot of newbies that are trying to decipher salespeople's mixing of speed ratings and bandwidth ratings.

[Tradesman]

PC3 and DDR3 both simply refer to sort of the 3rd gen of Double Data Rate DRAM, the PC is usually used in conjunction w/ theoretical bandwidth and DDR3 in conjunction with freq.

If I remember correctly with Easytune it shows true freq, so you are running 1333, (all sticks are, even though the F3-10666CL9-4GNT sticks are true 1333 and your other two sticks are 1600.

Of those three sets you mention the 2400 set would provide the best performance (though seriously doubt you'd be able to run at 2400) if your other components would be up to it (normally about a good 3570K is required or better to run 2400, what can be done though is to run the sticks a step down, at 2133 and tighten the CL from 9 to 8 (and remaining timings tighter also by 1), however may have problems doing that also as CL8/2133 would be fairly tight with your CPU. To that end, if it was me and this was for a client, I'd suggest a 2133/CL9 set (which if you can't hit 2133/9 could be dropped to 1866/CL8 (and for the 1156 socket I lean towards the Tridents, Snipers and Ripjaws X lines. Unless of course you can get a 2400 set for the same price or just have some extra you can spend (this is something I often do and then have faster sets of sticks if I build a newer rig or upgrade even further)

Thanks for the suggestion, unlike a lot of forums GSkill doesn't have a lot of memner mods running around, GSkill Support itself is Mon through Fri during business hours and both their head of Tech Support and some of their Engineers are normally in during their business hours (they are located in Taipei, I'm sort of the adopted kid, have been using their products for a number of years now and like this forum for keeping up with DRAM, mobos, CPUs and SSDs (and we often get into a number of other things here also) which helps me in the building end. Will take the above info and tack it onto the model # thread and make write another info thread....thanx for the idea and we'll be looking forward to hearing from you soon

[Radar]

Hey Tradesman,

It seems that the closest thing my favourite supplier has is a kit of RipjawsZ, model F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH.

They'd do the trick at a pinch, eh?

Thanks for all your help

Take care,

&

Have fun!

Radar =8^)

[Tradesman]

I think that would be a good fit

[Radar]

Hey Tradesman,

I got those RipjawsZ a few weeks back, tried Profile1, which worked on warm-boot, but on cold-boot, even though bios was detecting 4GB in each slot, it was disabling slots 3 & 4.

I tried putting sticks in only slots 1 & 3, but again, it only worked on a warm-boot. This time, on cold-boot, it detected the RAM in slots 1 & 3, but had disabled slot 3, and enabled 4GB in (the empty) slot 2.

I tried setting the RAM voltage to 1.64 (it goes up in steps of 2), and QPI/Vtt voltage to 1.05 manually, but got the same results

Whilst adjusting the RAM and QPI/Vtt voltages, I noticed that they both have a setting called "Normal" and figured they were worth a try. Setting the RAM voltage to "Normal" didn't have any effect, but setting QPI/Vtt to "Normal" allows me to use Profile1 (2004MHz) from cold-boot It still doesn't like Profile2, which has the RAM running at 2136MHz, but that's fine

I'll set it back to XMP Disabled for now, and will go back to Profile1 next weekend, and slap it around the head with a bunch of test utilities, just to see what it can take... If it handles those with no worries, then I'm set, and we can add this setting to the Intel Bios Settings thread

So, to recap the settings...

MIT >> Advanced Memory Settings >> XMP: "Profile1"
MIT >> Advanced Memory Settings >> Performance Enhance; "Standard"
MIT >> Advanced Voltage Settings >> QPI/VTT: "Normal"


Have fun!

Radar =8^)

[Tradesman]

Appreciate the info and good work on the sticks, Thanx

T