Doing my learning prior to building my own rig. Two ram questions: How much does CL 7vs8vs9 matter in FSX with a lot of addons? It seems as though 1600 is the right speed for ddr3, right? FYI I'll be running an I5 2500k on an ASUS P8Z68-V PRO LGA 1155 MOBO. Thanks Dan Cole

Latency really doesn't make that much of a difference. I believe that CL7 will see less microstutters than CL9 but the difference between CL7 and CL8 is probably negligible. 1600MHz is correct. Dual channel 8GB kit is what to look for. What GPU are you going to get?

I have ran mine at CL9 and CL7 and can not see a difference at all. Speed wise, it does not matter if its 1333, 1600 or 2000 much on the SB platforms. This is what I was told over at overclockers.net by a very credible member who posted a nice GA-Z68X-UD7 overclocking guide.

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/340377-choosing-the-best-ddr3-for-sandy-bridge/ See this thread and the link to an article by AnandTech. For sandy Bridge at least the latency seems to have little impact, with 1600mhz providing the speed vs price best value.

Don't go for 1333MHz ram. That's likely to bottleneck a OC'd 2500k.

I never saw a big difference between CL7, 8, 9 or 1333, 1600, 1866 2133 in my testsmaybe a 2% extra FPS going from 1333 to 1600

Latency really doesn't make that much of a difference. I believe that CL7 will see less microstutters than CL9 but the difference between CL7 and CL8 is probably negligible. 1600MHz is correct. Dual channel 8GB kit is what to look for. What GPU are you going to get?

EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1567-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB

Don't go for 1333MHz ram. That's likely to bottleneck a OC'd 2500k.

Not true according to the article. 1600Mhz is the sweet spot but very little in it.

I never saw a big difference between CL7, 8, 9 or 1333, 1600, 1866 2133 in my testsmaybe a 2% extra FPS going from 1333 to 1600

Dazz, Your findings are in line with the article. Nice!

EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1567-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB

Do you need the Pro version of the Asus board? you could save money there and get a 570

Don't go for 1333MHz ram. That's likely to bottleneck a OC'd 2500k.

Spend a bit of time on Google. http://www.google.com.au/#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&source=hp&q=1333+mhz+bottlenexk+i5+2500k&pbx=1&oq=1333+mhz+bottlenexk+i5+2500k&aq=f&aqi=q-n1&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=1009l13307l0l13500l36l36l5l0l0l0l339l7933l0.1.22.7l30l0&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=42a77a887edee1ee&biw=950&bih=495Check out a few threads. Yes, 1600 is better but by a minuscule amount. i could run my RAM at 1600mhz but choose not to overclock it.

Don't need to overclock it. Its been proven on here countless times that 1600MHz is the sweetspot for FSX

Did you even check any of the threads. I don't want to start off some fuming thread but there is very little in it. ask some PC builders like Dazz who actually tested.

How long have you been around here? a member for 2 weeks but are you a long time lurker? I've watched these forums for years. I read all the posts when the 1366 socket was released, all the testing done there. I watched when the SB was released and all the testing there. As Dazz said, its a 2% increase. In a poorly optimized program such as FSX, that 2% is everything

I did say that it was better but the fact is it will not bottleneck the CPU or GPU in any way. I have built my system to my needs and kept savings for real flying.

Work the money. Best advice possible :P