Re: Somthing toward a "sticky:" Suggestiion for a configuration discussion for various PC usage patterns
Posted: Sun May 20, 2018 11:25 pm
Here's the history of my extended building and improvement of a Skylake i7-6700K system as pertains to RAM decisions.
I may have contemplated the choice between a 2x8 = 16GB RAM kit and a 2x16GB = 32GB RAM kit for about two weeks. And at that time, I didn't have plans for an NVME M.2 drive. I added the NVME first as a 250GB 960 EVO just as an experiment with L2 caching. Then I added a 960 Pro as a boot-system disk, and put the EVO in my x16/x8 PCIE #2 slot for caching. I only bought the 2x8 kit of G.SKILL RAM.
It must have taken six months before I decided what to do about the RAM, as prices were going up and everyone is still talking about the price-point today. Ideally you would want a 2x16 kit for 32GB. I didn't want to waste the existing 2x8 kit. G.SKILL told me that a second kit of 2x8's might not work at the rated spec speeds and timings, but they would support the combination if I downclocked the RAM to DDR4-3000. I considered the possibilities, and realized that they didn't explicitly say that 2 x (2x8) wouldn't work. They just wouldn't guarantee that it would at 3200 Mhz. So for half the price of a 2x16 kit, I opened my wallet for another 2x8. 1,000% coverage by HCI Memtest 64 proves that 2 x (2x8) works fine.
So there I was. I cached the 960Pro to RAM, and I cached SATA device(s) to the 960 EVO. And I still added another tier of caching by assigning 8GB RAM to the SATA devices, leaving another 8GB to cache the Pro drive. Whether this is an optimal configuration, not even to mention a choice of read and write cache segments, I haven't much bothered to test, because stability is more important and with Primo version 3, this is all perfectly stable -- without cache resets or other troubles. Fine tuning continues to be assured stability, but what it is now is "good enough."
Caching to an L1 may indeed be wasteful, but it only cost me $180 as opposed to ~ $360 for the "ideal" kit with no uncertainty for running at spec. At that point, I have to say -- "why the hell not?!" After about 18 months running since initial parts purchase, someone could say "Hey! Isn't it time to let go and build an i7-8700K?" I'll put that one on my 2019 budget-option list. I don't even want to think about it now.
And I guess I'm still watching this thread that I started, because y'all have some interesting ideas. with the checkboxes filled for the deferred write and prefetch with "Start at boot time" options -- the "release L1 on hibernation" also checked -- this is a dream system, and I didn't shell out $15,000 on it like you see the Maximum PC magazine staff doing annually.
(OF course, I could wonder what a 4x16 RAM setup would offer. But I think we'd be talking about $800 there, and it definitely does not seem worth it just for being "curious.") Even if I didn't make them myself -- that's an awful lot of pulled-pork chili-verde wet burrito dinners. Several years worth.
I may have contemplated the choice between a 2x8 = 16GB RAM kit and a 2x16GB = 32GB RAM kit for about two weeks. And at that time, I didn't have plans for an NVME M.2 drive. I added the NVME first as a 250GB 960 EVO just as an experiment with L2 caching. Then I added a 960 Pro as a boot-system disk, and put the EVO in my x16/x8 PCIE #2 slot for caching. I only bought the 2x8 kit of G.SKILL RAM.
It must have taken six months before I decided what to do about the RAM, as prices were going up and everyone is still talking about the price-point today. Ideally you would want a 2x16 kit for 32GB. I didn't want to waste the existing 2x8 kit. G.SKILL told me that a second kit of 2x8's might not work at the rated spec speeds and timings, but they would support the combination if I downclocked the RAM to DDR4-3000. I considered the possibilities, and realized that they didn't explicitly say that 2 x (2x8) wouldn't work. They just wouldn't guarantee that it would at 3200 Mhz. So for half the price of a 2x16 kit, I opened my wallet for another 2x8. 1,000% coverage by HCI Memtest 64 proves that 2 x (2x8) works fine.
So there I was. I cached the 960Pro to RAM, and I cached SATA device(s) to the 960 EVO. And I still added another tier of caching by assigning 8GB RAM to the SATA devices, leaving another 8GB to cache the Pro drive. Whether this is an optimal configuration, not even to mention a choice of read and write cache segments, I haven't much bothered to test, because stability is more important and with Primo version 3, this is all perfectly stable -- without cache resets or other troubles. Fine tuning continues to be assured stability, but what it is now is "good enough."
Caching to an L1 may indeed be wasteful, but it only cost me $180 as opposed to ~ $360 for the "ideal" kit with no uncertainty for running at spec. At that point, I have to say -- "why the hell not?!" After about 18 months running since initial parts purchase, someone could say "Hey! Isn't it time to let go and build an i7-8700K?" I'll put that one on my 2019 budget-option list. I don't even want to think about it now.
And I guess I'm still watching this thread that I started, because y'all have some interesting ideas. with the checkboxes filled for the deferred write and prefetch with "Start at boot time" options -- the "release L1 on hibernation" also checked -- this is a dream system, and I didn't shell out $15,000 on it like you see the Maximum PC magazine staff doing annually.
(OF course, I could wonder what a 4x16 RAM setup would offer. But I think we'd be talking about $800 there, and it definitely does not seem worth it just for being "curious.") Even if I didn't make them myself -- that's an awful lot of pulled-pork chili-verde wet burrito dinners. Several years worth.