Ivy Bridge Thread

[PageFault]

An industrial lapping plate, which is a surface ground plate with a grid of grooves to channel away excess lapping compound. I hope it turns up ... I'll be needing it soon - the benchmarks posted here indicate how hoplessly obsolete my old junk is.

[Jeff Gilchrist]

For an Intel 3770K CPU system, which of these 3 RAM modules would be go for? This is what is available:

1) Mushkin Enhanced Redline Frostbyte 16GB 4X4GB PC3-17000 DDR3-2133 9-11-10-28 Quad Channel Memory

2) Kingston KHX2133C11D3K4/16GX 16GB 2133MHZ DDR3 NON-ECC CL11

3) G.SKILL F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH Ripjawz PC3-17000 16GB 4X4GB DDR3-2133 CL9-11-10-28

I realize the Kingston Hyper-X has looser timing but if they are a lot more stable/better build quality than I would consider them. I have never owned Mushkin or GSkill so not sure what kind of quality they are. The price for all three are roughly the same.

[Dubslow]

I read a few months back on one review on Newegg that for Kingston's higher-frequency memory sticks, they didn't actually come that way; you had to manually OC them in the motherboard up to their "rated" frequency, sometimes with an increased voltage, and when the costumer complained, Kingston replied back with "Sorry, but that's OC." Well why the hell was it rated like that then?

I'll try and find that review back, to make sure I'm not misremembering.

GSKILL and Corsair are the biggest names in memory; right now I have two Mushkin sticks and two GSKILL sticks, 1333 MHz, and they both work fine. If you want more nuanced opinions, try http://www.hardocp.com/; they are to hardware what this forum is to number theory.

Edit: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...scrollFullInfo

It's worth your time to read the bad review, but it's also probably worth your time to read responses to it. Certainly that Kingston makes a difference between "Plug n Play" and having to manually OC it to its rated frequency is a pretty big negative in my book. (In your place I'd go with GSKILL because it's what I have already and because it's a bigger name than Mushkin (or so I think).)

[lycorn]

I have had a very good experience with GSKILL (Ripjaws series). Fast and reliable. Definitely better than Kingston in my opinion.

[PageFault]

I am considering replacing my obsolete junk (pentium D 3.4). If I understand correctly, the best cpu is i5 3570k.

I don't know squat about memory these days. What I want is 2 x 8 GB sticks. Are the fancy types actually useful for LL testing performance? Perhaps this depends on the boart ...

Which will be a problem. I need a 64 bit pci slot for my SCSI card. Supermicro and Tyan offer these and I'm more inclined to choose a workstation / server board anyways but they don't offer much in the way of bios tweaks. Of course my statements here may be mutually exclusive.

I guess I can keep my geforce 8400GS. One thing I won't be doing is running a buch of high end gpu cards.

I don't have much budget due to an extremely unfortunate recent event but it does look possible for around a thousand dollars.

Anyone care to comment about the boart / memory?

[Dubslow]

From a value standpoint, yes that proc is best. About the memory, are you sure you want 2x8GB? That's very high density, and will be quite a bit more expensive than 4x4GB which is the same total memory. Faster memory will help LL, especially with the AVX on [SI]B processors. I don't know much about other peripherals, but PCI slots are still standard on many desktop motherboards. Where are you planning on ordering from?

I can recommend some memory if you give a price range; motherboards are harder to pick, but you should be able to find something decent for ~$150 or so. (Are you planning on overclocking?)

Jeff, are you planning on getting an ASUS mobo with their supposed memory speed advantage?

[PageFault]

I'm not too keen on overclocking but may use a higher multiplier, leaving a generous safety margin. I have been looking for a boart and this 64 bit slot is going to be a problem. I'm hearing to try it in a regular pci slot, knowing that it will default to 32 bit speeds if successful.

I like 8 GB sticks since they leave room for a future upgrade. I could do with 2 x 4 GB if it was necessary for budget reasons. Last thing I want to have is piles of low capacity sticks - there will soon be a day when "64 GB is not enough" ...

AVX - just how useful is it? I prefer to remain on server 2003 64 bit version. The devil I know ... What newer OS supports AVX and won't plain gross me out?

Ok Dubslow, recommend some mem sticks for approx. 100$

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by PageFault

...the best cpu is i5 3570k....

Taken out of context, I (and anybody) would certainly argue to this... But you know better your context, price/performance, power/performance requirements, etc.

[Dubslow]

AVX is +25% speedup over the SSE FFTs, which were the default until v27. With faster memory, you might even squeeze a few more percent out of it.

I had no idea about 32-bit or 64-bit for PCI slots -- as far as I know that only referred to addressable memory space.

I'll give links for 2x8GB and 4x4GB. (They'll have to be edited into the post, so check back over the next hour.)

In general, I'm giving G.SKILL examples, but if it matters Corsair or Mushkin should be good as well.

4x4GB DDR3-1600 $90

4x4GB DDR3-1600 $93 (more and better reviews)

Food for thought: 2x4GB DDR3-1866 $60 If all you're doing is LL tests, then this might be better with the extra memory speed, assuming you use AVX. With P-1 (or if some non-GIMPS workloads) you might actually need the memory.

The cheapest DDR3-1600 2x8GB that I would feel safe buying is $110. Many of the reviews stated that they had problems getting two of those kits = 32GB up and running, and one of the manufacturer responses stated that a straight up 32GB kit would work better than two of these 16GB kits. I'm not sure if this applies to more expensive/other brand 2x8GB mem kits.
Addendum: The cheapest G.SKILL 2x8GB set also had the same note from the manufacturer.

Originally Posted by G.SKILL

We are sorry to hear you are having issues. This is a 16GB kit, so it is only guaranteed to operate as a 16GB kit by itself in a single computer. For 32GB, you should purchase the 32GB kit:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...00CL10Q-32GBXL

This kit is pre-matched, tested, and guaranteed to operate in a single computer. When purchasing performance DRAM memory, always purchase a single kit of the capacity you need. If mix matching kits, it can cause problems such as what you are experiencing. For any further questions or issues, please feel free to contact us directly.

Originally Posted by Corsair

We're sorry to hear that you're having issues with our two memory kits, but please understand that the 32GB memory kits are designed to be more stable than two separate kits. Please contact our Customer Service department at 888-222-4346 and we'll work with you to find a solution to this problem.

If you truly need to expand to more than 16GB, then that might be okay, otherwise I'd still go with the 4x4GB.

@LaurV: Certainly, but within the $1000, and depending on what else I needed, I'd probably go with the same proc. The larger cache on the 3770K would be nice, but it's very arguably not worth the extra $100.

[Jeff Gilchrist]

Originally Posted by Dubslow

Jeff, are you planning on getting an ASUS mobo with their supposed memory speed advantage?

Yes, that is the plan. Considering the Sabertooth Z77 right now.

Jeff.

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by PageFault

there will soon be a day when "64 GB is not enough" ...

Mostly true, but application specific. For example, if we ever tackle
RSA-1024, it will require 32 to 64Gbytes of memory PER CORE to
do the sieving. i.e. if one has a multi-core processory, one will need
(say) 256Gbytes+ of memory to use multiple cores.......