Hey Guru's I had a look around google for infomation on what are the cons and pro's with DDR3 2133 in just filling 2 slots or 4 slots. I can currently do 2x 8GB Gskill Ripjaws 2133 or 4x 4GB Gskill Ripjaws 2133. I currently have a DDR3 2133 4x4GB kit on loan to me but need to decide which way to go.I'm happy with 16GB with video editing but going 32GB in future does seem nice if i go crazy. So what are the pros and cons to both?
The only thing I've heard is that the more slots you fill, the more difficult it becomes to stabilize overlocks So you might get a better OC with 2x8GB than 4x4GB That said, Im running 4x4GB @ 2133MHz fine
More DIMMS puts more load on the memory controller, same with higher speeds. My old X58 system never liked having 6 DIMMs at 2 GHz, especially when the cores were over 4 GHz, though it would do 1866 no problem, 3 DIMMs could get quite a bit over 2 GHz, even with the cores OCed at 4.4. I'd go with the higher density DIMMs personally. Since switching over to X79 (quad channel), I've stuck 4 of my 6 DIMMs in running quad channel, dropping from 24 to 16 GB, though I may get some corsair dominator platinum stuff, probably 4 x 8 (32 GB) at 2133 in the future. 16 GB is a reasonable amount to have, but if you have the 2 x 8 you have the option of upgrading that at a later date with no issues.
Sandy Bridge-E is a good deal faster than X58, aye, on a few counts. I've got PCIe 3, SATA 3 (stuck at 2 before), quad channel RAM (40 GB/s vs 30 for X58 triple). Not quite finished OCing yet, lots more tweaks to do before I'm totally happy with it, but thus far it's a good deal faster, not that my old rig was a slouch.