Which RAM for my new DAW?

Maybe Jim or Scott will chime in here cause I'm not an expert.
I only know that I just built an i7 system with MSI P55 board and Corsair 1600MHz  memory and it works fine.

the cpu itself works with 1066 mem ram,,,I had 1600 ram installed and never works fine...Blue screen of death, only 2 or 4 gigs of ram out of 6 gigs working at a time..just trouble with the 1600 mhz ram. I called Intel tech support and 1066 is what it is. Do the research and or make some calls....that way you can save yourself a headache .

gcruz


I have an i7 920 LGA 1366 ,,this processor works with 1066 mhz mem ram..DID NOT WORK WITH 1600 MHZ RAM. I had tons of problems with the 1600 mem..

VERY VERY WRONG
all X58 boards (even Intels) should work with 1600
 
the key is should work. compatibility with ram even at 1333 is well crazy.
the only ram i recommend is
Muskin 8-8-8-24 1600 Blackline
Muskin 6-7-6-24 1600 Redline
Corsair dominator 8-8-8-24  1600
 
or buy 1333 (compatibility gets a little better) but never 1066 too slow.
if not buying the above ram
3 sticks is not too bad trying 6 sticks to all work together have fun
 
plus you have to know how to set the bios. must use XMP profiles
 
X58 systems can be a lot of fun (fun as in grey hair)
 
 
 

OCZ = BAD!
much trouble with them

jcschild..

you are rigth on the x58 and 1600 mhz ram...I have the asus p6t MB and works wiht 1066, 1333, 1600 and 1800, 1866 and 2000 mhz ram...no question about it, but when it comes to the processor everything changes. I have the i7 920 cpu and had CORSAIR DOMINATOR 1600 mhz. After so many BSOD and having sonar crashing all the time I check control panel looking for any hardware conflict and I found that only 4gigs out of 6gigs of ram was working, after following asus tech instruction to make all the mem works just 2gigs of ram star working not even 4 anymore, then I call Intel tech support and the ram installed was the problem.... i7 920 does not work with 1600 or higher speed ram....I'm not sure about the 1333 mhz. You can make it work overclocking the cpu or down grading the ram but in my case corsair 1600 does not go slower than that. Asus agree to change my MB but before that I bought a new set of 1066 mhz ram to follow Intel tech instructions and right now all my problems are resolved. NO MORE TROUBLE. Maybe some people are lucky with some other x58 MB, i7 920 cpu and 1600 mhz mem but I wasn't. Not even on XMP mode.

I have same Gigabyte X58 motherboard. Have 1600 ram installed and it works fine. It was the fastest ram at time of purchase but can be upgraded to 2200 also.  The motherboard "controller chip (northbridge)" does the ajustments and safety for CPU and RAM. 

Latency does not matter much these days as Micro-Seconds (0.000001 sec) is a hundred times faster than, say 10 Milli-Seconds (0.001 sec) on modern machines.  Latency and Timing of ram does not equate to latency in recording.

To speed up your machine look into RAID.  It is installed at start of build and not after.

RAID fits in between BIOS and Windows.

You need to download mother board "controller chip (southbridge)" software (for system devices) from Gigabyte.
Ajust BIOS to suit RAID array - Reboot - Hit Ctrl I - Configure striped and/or mirrored array of similar hard drives - Reboot - Install chip software - Then add Windows.
Having 2 or more hard drives contributing to the in-out data of your system, will give you at least a 50% seek and save boost.  Things tend to load more quickly.