Is faster ram better quality ram?

[bgstcola]

It seems like there is only small performance gains when buying faster ram.

But what about quality? I would guess that faster ram would be of higher quality than the slower ram and thus it would make sense to buy the faster ram if the price difference is small. Not for performance reasons but for the quality.

Would that be correct?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Not necessarily. Most likely, Faster RAM == Overvolted, overclocked RAM.

That being said, faster RAM *at the same voltage*, is likely to be "binned" as better.

 

[Soulkeeper]

Years back it used to be we had 2 or 3 ram speeds to choose from, I kinda miss the simplicity.
I generally advise people to avoid factory overclocked/overvolted memory when buying. It's mostly a marketing tactic to get more money from you. Essentially, what you're doing is buying a guarantee that the ram will run at a certain speed (which is likely the case for the cheaper ram too). VirtualLarry put quotes around "binned" for good reason, It's unlikely their are bins of vastly better chips floating around. Things are high volume low margin. The ram business is very competitive and cut throat, companies need to differentiate and grab attention to remain relative (think big numbers, flashy heatsinks/colors, and even leds).

Buying the highest jedec standard speed at the lowest voltage is usually a good idea.

 

[AlienTech]

It seems like there is only small performance gains when buying faster ram.

But what about quality? I would guess that faster ram would be of higher quality than the slower ram and thus it would make sense to buy the faster ram if the price difference is small. Not for performance reasons but for the quality.

Would that be correct?

Can you imagine the number of fabs Intel would have to run if they had to make seperate chips for each and every release? All the CPU's are the same, they change jumpers so they work at different speeds.. Same with memory. In some cases AMD sold 3 core cpu's where the 4th was disabled. But I think to save costs they do make multi core separate dies for each. Remember the little rom on the RAM tells the computer what speed the ram would run at. You could run them at higher speeds. Unlike CPU's where the higher clock would break timing for other stuff like the SATA and PCIE slots.. Although the RAM has been binned for a speed and released, it only means it has not been tested for higher speeds but if they do sell higher speed ram, then those were binned at the higher speeds. I seen the likes of kingston that buy millions of modules and bin them to get the higher speed ram's to sell at more cost. Since the speeds depends on capacitance and things like that, the spray deposits on the die dont stick as well on some ram die's as others.. Quality is the same though.. Mother nature and physical laws are the culprits..

 

[bgstcola]

Okay I get that they are produced the same way... But doesn't the fact that the higher speed ram has been tested at higher speed make them a safer buy? If the ram is only able to run at low speed it would be more likely to cause trouble right?

 

[corkyg]

There is more than one facet in quality. There is first, a designed quality. Then there is a manufacturing quality. The latter can vary slightly from production lot to production lot. Speed is not really an indicator of quality. Design quality is an engineering calculation which produces MTBF. Production quality can have a range of acceptance. Some lots may be slightly better or worse than other lots of the same item.

Quality relates more to reliability than to speed.

 

[Blain]

If I were shopping for high quality (DDR3) memory, I would use the following parameters as a guide...

* DDR3 rated at 1.5v or lower
* DDR3 rated at the lowest CAS I could afford
* DDR3 rated at the highest clock speed I could afford
* Limit the scope of my purchase to G.Skill, Mushkin, Corsair XMS or Crucial (non-Ballistix)

While not wavering on the voltage point, I would balance the other issues with my budget.

Remember, my goal is not pure "benchmarking" performance, but simply finding the highest quality memory I can afford. ^_^

The only reason I pay a premium for low latency, high speed, low voltage memory is...
Quality and quality alone.

1.5v is the JEDEC DDR3 voltage standard.
Stay with 1.5v or less if you can afford it..

What he said

 

[John Connor]

That's my rule of thumb, but I call shens on the Ballistix. I bought Crucial Ballistix for a Dell years ago and had no trouble. My bro gave me his machine and one stick of G.Skill RAM was bad.

I think my Bro has the Ballistix stuff now in his computer after a lot of RAM trouble with G.Skill.

 

[Dasa2]

if your really worried about ram quality for a work system maybe you should be looking at ecc
ram is fairly reliable stuff really at least by comparison to hdd\mb\psu\gpu

higher ram speeds are only really of any value to overclockers

 

[Anteaus]

It seems like there is only small performance gains when buying faster ram.

But what about quality? I would guess that faster ram would be of higher quality than the slower ram and thus it would make sense to buy the faster ram if the price difference is small. Not for performance reasons but for the quality.

Would that be correct?

Buying faster ram for systems running at stock speeds is unnecessary. Faster ram is mostly about giving you overhead when overclocking, though using it in any application will have some gains.

Generally speaking, brands that produce and market high speed ram tend to produce a higher quality product across the board. For registered ECC ram the pickings are slimmer, but for unbuffered non-ECC ram as long as you stay with a reputable brand like G.Skill or Corsair then you will get a quality product.

That said, compatibility issues can still arise and bad ram can still be gotten. There are no guarantees. There can be alot of bias from person to person. I got a bad stick of corsair many years ago and since then I've been with G.Skill ever since with great results. Results may vary.

 

[Blain]

if your really worried about ram quality for a work system maybe you should be looking at ecc
ram is fairly reliable stuff

By it's very purpose, ECC memory is more reliable. But he would need to verify that his MB/CPU support ECC memory before going that route.

 

[Cerb]

Faster only for performance, which tends to be a minor thing, without a really fast CPU (like a near-5GHz Haswell). It's very rare, today, to get bad RAM, but occasionally some got damaged between the factory and you, and occasionally some will go out after it's been in use awhile, even though it passed tests at the factory. Technically, running it slower, and at lower voltage, than spec, should increase the life, but generally, RAM is going to either fail while you're still using the PC, or last decades, at the rated specs.

Get a reputable brand, that's within the normal voltage specs for your CPU and board, and then don't worry about it.

 

[MongGrel]

ECC is more reliable, is what it is designed for of course, I believe most satellites/space craft use it. If your MOBO can do it.

Mine can but I just use GSkill Ripjaw 1333 low latency/timing banks, as they OC well with the X5680.

I guess it's just DDR3.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231405

I've become a GSkill fanboi over time.

I'd like to get 3 more, but have really never felt the need to.

 

[ShintaiDK]

If you want as reliable as possible and purely thinking quality. Then never buy memory with speeds above the chips rated speed and voltage.

If you are into DDR4 for example. That means 2133 and 2400Mhz with 1.2V. And you have to be careful not getting 2400 with 2133 chips.

DDR3 is much more messy due to its long life.

 

[john3850]

I have six different sets of GsKill 1600MHz all ratted at 1.5v.
All of my GsKill 1.5v runs good at 1.35v on 3 different mb.
I believe most of your DDR3 is just overvolted DDR3L (DDR3 Low Voltage) using the 1.5v which also helps makes it compatible to older mother boards.

 

[zir_blazer]

I have two theories about this. First, by definition, higher speed, more expensive modules SHOULD use better binned ICs that were tested to be able to work at those high Frequencies reliability, whereas you have no guarantee that a 1600 MHz DDR3 module can do 2400 MHz even at 1.65V. Its true that they could be more likely to fail since they are going to be more stressed due high Frequencies and the overvolting, but this also applies to other parts like the Processor - I would say that a humble Haswell Core i5 would have a more confortable life than the factory overclocked Core i7 4790K with stock cooling running near the headroom and thermal limits. However, if you pick one of those high binned parts and use them at slower speeds, I would say that they should be more reliable that a comparable lower binned part.
I do have some doubts about the last part. During the last decade or so and with the advent of special process tweaking aimed for low voltage parts plus the variance among dies, there were several professional overclockers that claimed that low leakage Processor dies that would be fine for low TDP models had a lower absolute maximum Frequency that higher leakage ones, so usually you saw high leakage power hungry parts at the peak but that would be worse that more modest parts that could averagely clock the same at lower Voltages. So, if you were going to go for low power consumption, maybe an undervolted premium bin would perform worse that a comparable, low leakage one that could be found in mainstream parts.

Also, remember that while the point in binning is to guarantee that the dies are capable of being used for a model with determined specifications, maybe overally the yields are good enough that in average there isn't any real difference between the dies that they may use in low end models and high end ones, like the Samsung DDR3 modules that were budget but overclocked like champs. That is a good example when there are soo many good dies that even the cheap line gets them.