Bdtyktl

What's the difference between buying the following:

• 
  G.SKILL TridentZ Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Intel Z370 Platform Desktop Memory Model F4-3200C14D-32GTZSW - $379.99


• 
  G.SKILL TridentZ Series 64GB (4 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3200 (PC4 25600) Intel Z370 Platform / Intel X99 Platform Desktop Memory Model F4-3200C14Q-64GTZSW - $1,018.46

To my naive eye, I do not understand why I don't buy two quantity of the top one and save (1,018.46)-(379.99*2)=258.48

What differences can there between two kits, when the kits have (a) the same manufacturer (b) the same marketing brand name (c) the same MT/s (d) the same timings (14-14-14-34) (e) the same MHz clock frequency tested by the manufacturer?

Is there a general principle I can follow when comparing two memory sticks from the same manufacturer? My current framework is:

• Use ram.userbenchmark.com


• Make sure the RAM I am thinking about buying is compatible with my motherboard


• Look at timings - 14-14-14-34 seems to be the best for Z390 motherboards


• Look at MT/s and make sure I am comparing MT/s to MT/s and not MT/s to MHz.


• Read reviews - different manufacturers may be more likely to produce RAM that results in Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) and other annoying memory defects that may not be worth the hassle.

On top of this, I'm not really clear on why some memory is faster than others. For example, is it really better technology, or is it simply out-of-the-box one is configured to run faster than another? For example, I see a lot of 1.35V RAM that seems to be faster than 1.2V RAM, but the 1.2V RAM has only slightly slower timings. Wouldn't overclocking the 1.2V RAM with Intel XMP 2.0 Profiles allow me to lower the timings significantly, assuming my motherboard can handle it? (And what does it mean for a motherboard to "handle it", really? Is this just as empirical as it sounds?)

According to the G.Skill websites compare feature, there is no difference between these two sets of RAM (besides the number of sticks per package).

As far as model names go, I suspect Q stands for Quad Channel Kit, and D stands for Dual Channel Kit. The 32/64GTZSW is the model number for that particular product.

So yes, you can safely buy whichever configuration of this RAM you find cheapest.

For most users, there's no practical difference other than cost (though do make sure you compare cost properly, the difference in my experience is usually pretty small, often less than 2-3%). Keep in mind that buying larger sets also makes returns more complicated (if one module is bad, you have to return the whole set).

There is one difference that may matter to power users though, as a general rule, all memory modules in a set use components from the same production batch, and are assembled together as part of the same production batch. This has two practical implications:

• It's statistically slightly more likely to have multiple modules from a set packaged together fail at about the same time than it is to have the same number of individually bought modules fail at about the same time. This usually isn't enough of a difference to matter to most people, but it can be important for people who need uptime guarantees.


• Because they were made together, they should all have the same production quirks, which means that they should be more likely to behave the same as each other when overclocked to an arbitrary degree, which in turn makes them easier to overclock safely.

The second point there is part of the reason for the difference in price, many dedicated DIY PC builders will often preferentially buy all the memory modules for their system as a single set even if it costs marginally more so that they know they will behave as closely as possible to each other.