@Saint_Cad thanks for your insight. How do you know that it has an MSI motherboard? - I was scanning the ad and couldn’t find that info.
One of the pictures shows a MSI mobi. But that raises the point, if the ad doesn’t state that, are we sure you would get one and not a cheaper one?
That’s ridiculously overpriced. Even in Canadollars and after apparently a 10% discount.
Total ripoff. By at LEAST $2000. Do not pay this much money for that machine, especially with the RTX 50XXs already out (albeit hard to find).
Well, I compared prices to Amazon.ca and MemoryExpress.com and the price is good. In Canada, you don’t have too many options.
The Best Buy site you listed shows many similar models at much more reasonable prices: https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/collection/save-gaming-desktops/3078?path=category%253AComputers%2B%2526%2BTablets%253Bcategory%253ADesktop%2BComputers%253Bcategory%253AGaming%2BDesktop%2BComputers%253Bprocessortype0enrchstring%253AAMD%253Bgraphicscard0enrchstring%253AGeForce%2BRTX%2B4080%257CGeForce%2BRTX%2B4070&sort=priceLowToHigh
You might have to add more RAM or a bigger hard drive, but that’s still nowhere near $2000.
That’s probably for the best. AMD CPUs don’t play well with having four slotted dimms. The prevailing wisdom is that if you go with AMD, only fill two of your RAM slots.
(With all four ram slots populated, there is a good chance that you won’t be able to run the memory at its rated XMP/EXPO speed, but instead will be stuck with 4800 MHz. And in fact for the two stick approach, people recommend 6000 MHz 30 CL as stable and sustainable speeds to shoot for.)
EDIT: Here’s an example discussion about the issue, though mostly I see it in reddit discussions on r/PCMasterRace and r/BuildaPC.
If I recall correctly, the Intel boards/chips don’t play well with quad channel DDR5 either so, again, two slots is probably fine especially if you’re populating it with 32 or 64 total RAM.
While the 5000 series cards are out, they’re so underwhelming that I wouldn’t care about getting a 4000 series card provided it was priced well. I’m not saying this system is priced well (it’s not) but just seeing a 4080 wouldn’t make me feel as though I’m missing out on much.
Yeah, I have that same impression. Most of the discussions I’ve seen about it focus on AMD, but occasionally someone will throw in “Intel has the same issue.”
I’ve seen equivalent PCs to that for about $3100 in Canada. Definitely wait.
My understanding is consumer CPUs are designed for dual channel memory. For true quad-channel memory you’d need workstation or server hardware like a Xeon or Threadripper CPU and a compatible mobo.
See, this comes from me being an Intel guy.
The idea is not dual- vs quad-channel. It’s about adding more RAM without losing the RAM you already have.
But you also don’t want to add RAM that’s going to make your overall speeds worse. When I decided to go from 32 to 64GB in my system, I opted to buy two 32GB sticks rather than two more 16GB sticks because both got me to 64GB but using all four channels was going to hurt my memory speed.
I didn’t say two RAM slots was the worst thing to ever happen to anyone ever. I simply pointed out that eventually (like years after the build) my experience is that I want four instead of two. Like when my 10 year old rig needed 16 Gig for an application and I went out and bought two cheap-ass 4 Gig sticks rather than two 8 Gigs.
No one implied that you did. We were just saying that since current gen CPUs don’t play well with quad channel memory, it’s not that big of a detriment to only have two slots since there’s a good argument for staying with dual channel memory. If you need to upgrade, it sucks to have to buy two new replacement sticks but you can always sell the old memory or (if you’re like me) toss it into the parts box for the next inevitable build.
Older gen CPUs actually worked better with four memory sticks than the DDR5 boards do. And the jump in speed on DDR5 from XMP/EXPO is significant enough that many users would rather have two sticks running at 6000 speed than four sticks at 3200 even if the four sticks have more overall memory. Obvious that’s user dependent.
I know. I was just clarifying my position that my looking for four slots is based on my experience over the long term. If you are not me, and most of you are not, I could see an argument that it doesn’t matter, like 8 years from now I’ll have a new machine OR why not get faster memory so you’re throwing it in your catch-all anyways. That way the OP can say that doesn’t apply to me and do what my kids do and ignore me. I just want to avoid the OP coming back in 2030 to this zombie saying why did no one tell me I wanted 4 RAM slots for an upgrade.
Is that the board or the memory? My understanding was that that rule of thumb came from the early adopters of DDR5.
Are memory frequencies and timings etc actually that significant? I have never noticed a real world difference between the super fast premium stuff and the budget cheap sticks, but maybe I’m just not running the right benchmarks or games? When would RAM speed ever become a bottleneck, vs lack of RAM quantity that causes swapping etc.?
Between the worse and best case scenarios it can be pretty significant. Here’s a 10min LTT video where they go through it. There’s some notable FPS gaps in there between running 3200 and 6000 speeds.
In my specific case, I was upgrading to better play around with LLMs which hit the memory hard and better speed definitely helps when it’s chewing up close to all 64GB I have in the system.
The motherboard. Specifically the IMC, or Integrated Memory Controller. The eventual fix (assuming there is one) would involve replacing your motherboard, but you could (probably) keep the dimms.
The 4-stick issue is one of the reasons I’m not excited to build with current tech. The other being the intel 13th and 14th gen degradation issues. I’m hoping in a year from now the ram issue is fixed for new motherboards because I am leaning AMD …x3D, though I’m not sure if they’re best for Cities Skylines 1 and/or 2. (Anyone know?)
When I built my intel 10th gen back in 21, I found it very satisfying to slot 2x8 to start with 16 GB and then 10 months later add a second 2x8 of the same ram (but different lot #) to get up to 32 GB, and all of it has always run at the proper XMP speed of 3200 MHz. But that was DDR4, which didn’t generally have an issue with four slots. (I don’t think consumer boards run quad channel, but rather just all four sticks run dual channel.)
Here’s an interesting reddit topic on the ram issue:
The top reply is where I learned what an IMC was just now while writing this post. Another comment mentions that Intel also has similar issues but less so. Something along the lines of Ryzen being rated for 5200 MHz and Intel 7000, both of which can be exceeded but the further beyond the less stable. Thus shooting for 6000 CL30 as reasonably safe and noticeably better than the default DDR5 speed of 4800 CL40.
Sure, you could get an extra 3-5 fps out of faster memory. Judgement call if that’s worth it.