nMP Ram Ponderings

[Selsk]

So I just got a cheap 32gb ram kit off amazon. It's like $150 for the proper spec ECC ram of 4, 16gb dims. Timetec is the brand. I originally had the stock 16gb of 4 dims.

I ran a Geekbench test before the switch and got 3949. After with the new ram I got a slightly lower score, like 3918 or something...I didn't write it down. :/

Kind of a bummer...but I was kind of expecting this since I had read that the Error Correction process adds an additional step for the ram and thus, is a bit slower than non ECC?

I just want some opinions. Would you keep the 32gb? I was thinking or getting another 32gb later on for 64 total.

Should I instead use the largest non ecc ram? Get 4 8gb chips instead to have a max of 32gb of quicker ram?
Im not 100% sure that 8gb chips are even available in non ecc. Maybe someone can answer that. I'm not so technical...apologies.

Also I just want to add I did try mixing my new ram with a couple of the 4gb old Mac chips but it just beeped at me and wouldn't boot.

My intention for the ram was to speed things up in general Lightroom / Photoshop. But also to get that sweet extra 1 FPS gaming in windows.

Maybe its just that I have bottom shelf ram? I'm curious if OWC or crucial $$$$ ECC ram would make any difference.

Thanks for reading. Any expert opinions are welcome.

 

[AidenShaw]

Should I instead use the largest non ecc ram?

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Seriously, why sacrifice reliability, integrity, and maintainability for an almost unmeasurable performance boost?

If something takes an hour (3600 seconds) at a Geekbench of 3949, it will take less than 30 seconds longer at a Geekbench of 3918. Will you notice 30 seconds per hour? Do you trust that Geekbench is even useful for predicting the performance of the applications in your workflow?

 

[Selsk]

My bad. When I was talking about ECC vs non ECC... What I meant was Unbuffered vs Registered.

I meant 32GB via four 8GB ECC UDIMMs

vs 32GB via 2 two 16GB ECC RDIMM

Honestly the computer is powerful enough. I'm now just going for any measurable boost that I can (for fun).
Mostly curiosity.

 

[AidenShaw]

My bad. When I was talking about ECC vs non ECC... What I meant was Unbuffered vs Registered.

I meant 32GB via four 8GB ECC UDIMMs

vs 32GB via 2 two 16GB ECC RDIMM

Honestly the computer is powerful enough. I'm now just going for any measurable boost that I can (for fun).
Mostly curiosity.

Four DIMMs are better than two - the CPU has four interleaved memory channels.

Not a big difference on most applications because of the big caches. Look at a long discussion of memory configs at https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...th-various-mem-configs.1704700/#post-18745317

 

[Selsk]

I was wondering about that. Thanks. That link is gold!
Might have to get another two dims of this cheap ram next month.

Four DIMMs are better than two - the CPU has four interleaved memory channels.

Not a big difference on most applications because of the big caches. Look at a long discussion of memory configs at https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...th-various-mem-configs.1704700/#post-18745317