cheap vs not-so-cheap (b-die)ram for threadripper 2950X on ASROCK X399 Taichi

[demoan666]

cheap vs not-so-cheap (b-die)ram for threadripper 2950X on ASROCK X399 Taichi?

 

HyperX- Predator- HX430C15PB3K8128-

https://www.komputronik.pl/product/394567/hyperx-predator-128gb-8x16gb-3000mhz-ddr4-cl15-xmp-dimm-.html (1. will this be stable and work just fine?) (2. what kind of performance loss i might be seeing if i use this kit vs the following?)

600 USD Approx

OR

G.Skill F4-3000C14Q2-128GVRD-

https://www.morele.net/pamiec-g-skill-ripjaws-v-ddr4-128-gb-3000mhz-cl14-f4-3000c14q2-128gvrd-927996/

1000 USD Approx

 

thanks in Advance

M.

Edited April 27, 2020 by demoan666

[DaJuice]

Are they both on the QVL for the Taichi? Assuming the HyperX kit is on the QVL it should be fine, and I don't feel like the tighter timings on the other RAM will make a big enough difference to justify the price. For what it's worth, before upgrading to a larger kit I had a 32GB HyperX kit in my 1st gen TR system and it worked without issues (although it was Hynix rather than Samsung b-die).

 

 

[demoan666]

4 hours ago, DaJuice said:

Are they both on the QVL for the Taichi? Assuming the HyperX kit is on the QVL it should be fine, and I don't feel like the tighter timings on the other RAM will make a big enough difference to justify the price. For what it's worth, before upgrading to a larger kit I had a 32GB HyperX kit in my 1st gen TR system and it worked without issues (although it was Hynix rather than Samsung b-die).

 

 

Hi DaJuice,

 

thanks for answering and pointing out that its in the QVL , indeed it is there:

and thanks for the tip on tighter timing issue, i honestly have no idea about how big a difference it can make during simulations.

so technically main differences:

G.Skill: 14 CL vs HyperX Predator: 15 CL
 

both the producers' websites says its life time warranty + i think the HyperX has a 5 year sellers' service gurantee (i will confirm this tomorrow with the vendor in question)

thanks a ton again, much appreciated tips

m.

[demoan666]

20 hours ago, DaJuice said:

Are they both on the QVL for the Taichi? Assuming the HyperX kit is on the QVL it should be fine, and I don't feel like the tighter timings on the other RAM will make a big enough difference to justify the price. For what it's worth, before upgrading to a larger kit I had a 32GB HyperX kit in my 1st gen TR system and it worked without issues (although it was Hynix rather than Samsung b-die).

 

 

Just curious, what did you upgrade to? and how is it working?

[DaJuice]

I'm using this now:

https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Memory/VENGEANCE-LPX/p/CMK256GX4M8A2666C16

I chose it because... well, it was the only 256GB kit on my motherboard's QVL (MSI X399 Pro Carbon something something). 1st gen TR can be picky with memory and I didn't want to take chances with a non-QVL kit.

I've only had it a couple of weeks ago but performance-wise it seems to be doing it's job. The HyperX ran at 3200MHz vs 2666MHz on this set, but in day-to-day tasks I can't tell a difference by feel alone.

[demoan666]

8 minutes ago, DaJuice said:

I'm using this now:

https://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/Memory/VENGEANCE-LPX/p/CMK256GX4M8A2666C16

I chose it because... well, it was the only 256GB kit on my motherboard's QVL (MSI X399 Pro Carbon something something). 1st gen TR can be picky with memory and I didn't want to take chances with a non-QVL kit.

I've only had it a couple of weeks ago but performance-wise it seems to be doing it's job. The HyperX ran at 3200MHz vs 2666MHz on this set, but in day-to-day tasks I can't tell a difference by feel alone.

thanks for that piece of info (my parts vendor mentioned that 128GB vengence set and said that he has built a few pc with those and they were working without any complaints so far)

I did not know TR processors support 256 GB of ram. Are you talking about this board: https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/X399-GAMING-PRO-CARBON-AC/Specification (it seems to have support upto 128 GB)

 

"offtopic question": can you illustrate a (or a couple :)) typical scenario where all (or close to all) of your 256GB memory is being ustilized by houdini?

 

thanks again

[DaJuice]

Yup, that's the one. MSI hasn't bothered updating the specs (nor the BIOS in quite a while), but they have continued to expand the QVL at least. At the time 16GB DIMMs were the largest size available for mainstream and HEDT platforms. Now that has been bumped to 32GB, allowing for 256GB on motherboards with 8 DIMM slots, though I couldn't tell you for sure that all TR mobos support it. According to this forum post, the Taichi does: http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=12298&title=256gb-ram-on-x399-professional-gaming-motherboard

As for use cases, when we were doing solves with Maya/PhoenixFD, heavier pyro and fluid sims often had to be scaled back because they would eventually creep past 128GB. I'd like to get into more sim stuff in Houdini for learning/personal projects and didn't want to run into that.

Hope that helps

 

[demoan666]

14 hours ago, DaJuice said:

Yup, that's the one. MSI hasn't bothered updating the specs (nor the BIOS in quite a while), but they have continued to expand the QVL at least. At the time 16GB DIMMs were the largest size available for mainstream and HEDT platforms. Now that has been bumped to 32GB, allowing for 256GB on motherboards with 8 DIMM slots, though I couldn't tell you for sure that all TR mobos support it. According to this forum post, the Taichi does: http://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=12298&title=256gb-ram-on-x399-professional-gaming-motherboard

As for use cases, when we were doing solves with Maya/PhoenixFD, heavier pyro and fluid sims often had to be scaled back because they would eventually creep past 128GB. I'd like to get into more sim stuff in Houdini for learning/personal projects and didn't want to run into that.

Hope that helps

 

thanks a bunch! that was indeed helpful and insightful  

one thing tho! from what i found so far the threadripper doesn't let the ram go beyond 2933 Mhz. So, i am curious when you had those hyperx (i am assuming they were same as the ones i linked earlier - so 3000 Mhz) in your previous build were you running them at 2666 Mhz or you were able to run them at 2933 Mhz. 
(in this doc https://www.kingston.com/dataSheets/HX430C15PB3K8_128.pdf i found they come with 2 xmp profiles  2666 Mhz and 3000 Mhz)

and does running these RAM at 2666 Mhz rather than at the optimum 2933 Mhz make any noticeable difference in running sims inside houdini?  

thanks again, cheers!

[DaJuice]

I don't believe those numbers in the TR specs are hard limits, more like what AMD will guarantee works with appropriately fast memory. For example the "System Memory Specification" for 1st gen was only 2667MHz, but I had no trouble running the HyperX kit (not the same as you linked) at the rated 3200MHz just using the XMP profiles.

I did some comparisons of different memory speeds with Cinebench renders when I first built the system, but nothing comprehensive and nothing with Houdini sims. Those kinds of benchmark will probably be hard to come by. It did make a little bit of difference in Cinebench and I think that was comparing the stock 2400MHz speed vs the 3200MHz overclock. I feel like the difference for Houdini sims will be pretty negligible if we're talking 2666 vs 2933.