First post, by Skyscraper
I have noticed that there have been many threads related to DDR3 lately. With more and more people wanting to build Windows XP systems for games that doesn't play nice in Windows 10/11 it's hardly surprising that questions about DDR3 pops up more often . Some people spend a lot of money on what they think is the optimal memory kit for their build. Is it worth buying expensive DDR3 memory kits or is this money that could be spent better?
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I'm in the process of testing loads of DDR3 modules I own but never tested. I will not only test if the modules work or not but also what kind of performance that could be squeezed out of the memory. Information about DDR3 optimization has always been very fragmented on the Internet and now when more and more computer forums get closed down much information could be lost.
I aim to collect valuable information about DDR3 in this thread and also add my own findings from my testing. If someone has anything to contribute please do so.
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Some questions this thread will try to answer.
Does the choice of (DDR3) memory even matter?
What kind of (DDR3) memory is right for this or that build/purpose?
What memory speed and timings can this or that (DDR3) memory IC usually handle?
What kind of memory related voltages can this or that CPUs memory controller safely handle?
What kind of impact do memory speed and the different memory timings have on performance.?
Dual ranked versus single ranked memory.
Performance impact when using bigger modules.
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Before answering any questions some controlled testing needs to be done to get some first hand information.
New PC: i9 12900K @5GHz all cores @1.2v. MSI PRO Z690-A. 32GB DDR4 3600 CL14. 3070Ti.
Old PC: Dual Xeon X5690@4.6GHz, EVGA SR-2, 48GB DDR3R@2000MHz, Intel X25-M. GTX 980ti.
Older PC: K6-3+ 400@600MHz, PC-Chips M577, 256MB SDRAM, AWE64, Voodoo Banshee.