Supermicro X10SRA-O, E5 1650v3, Samsung DDR4 ECC RAM?

[Submariner]

As a newbie need advice.
I put in 2x 16GB Samsung DDR4 Ram, its recognised and runs very well.
I saw a post on Toms Hardware that stated if one puts 2x 16GB ( 32 GB in total) that if you have a 4 Channel memory MB then only 2 Channels will be addressed, and it will run at 50% of the speed of a system with 4x 8GB?

OK so far I am happy with the speed, but if it could be doubled then sure I am interested?

But is this true? My application is editing large photo files up to 160MB each, and soon 4K video.

There is no real mention of this in the Supermicro MB manual, and the dealer thought it was fine.

Note some say I may only really need 16GB, hence thinking of the future, I went the 16GB stick route, i.e. If ai need more then buy another 2, 16GB sticks to make 64 GB as I believe you upgrade in pairs.

Any comments, advice most welcome.
I can afford to buy 2 more but would rather not as I hope I won't need the extra RAM.

 

[PigLover]

Your memory access speed will indeed double. That does not mean system speed will double. Memory speed is only one aspect of speed.

In practice for many applications the difference may be negligible. If your application does any large scale memory access (e.g., DB applications or video processing) the the difference may be quite noticeable.

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

 

[Submariner]

Thanks for the info
Right that was very helpful
The other article just said 1/2 speed. As if the second 16Gb was not even there.

So I guess when I come to do 4K video editing it might be a good thing to upgrade.

Am I understanding it properly :-
Although it can access all 32GB, the " access " speed to the CPU will be limited the 2 channels not the possible 4 channels?
But in all other aspects there is 32GB working.?

Out of interest would my system for say editing still images, be faster with 2x 16GB ram than with 4x 4GB.?

My initial thoughts were if I currently need 16GB, but may later (due to video) need 32GB, then it was better future proofing to get 2x 16GB now i.e. Hopefully a little faster initially than say getting 4x 4GB , but with real awesome potential when I get the other 2x 16GB in the future. ( namely 64GB not 32GB and also with them using all 4 Memory chanels at full speed.
My logic was if I went the 4GB route, I would have to swap out all 4 4GB sticks.

I Am surprised the MB doesnt have some logic to address the other 2 currently empty Memory Channels, albeit with some performance degredation due to partially switching over.

Or maybe with hindsight as this board has 8 dimm slots, should I have got 4 x4GB thrn, and later got another 4x 4 GB. ( but then I assume there would be some degrdation as the other four slots shared the 4 memory channels

All a bit achedemic now.

 

[PigLover]

For video editing your definitely notice the difference. Not so much during the editing, but for previews, rendering and finishing it will matter.

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

 

[Patrick]

Think about it this way. With an E5-1600/ 2600 chip the CPU has the memory controller. You have four memory channels and up to 3 DIMMs per channel.

Think about it this way - you have 4 sets of train tracks from the DIMMs to the CPU. With 2 DIMMs, you have two trains and 4 tracks. If you got 2 more DIMMs and put them in the appropriate spots, you would have 4 trains and 4 tracks.

If your application only has enough data (e.g. cargo, passengers or something) for 2 trains or less, you will see a modest performance improvement.

On the other hand, if your application needs more than 2 trains to get data to the CPU, then having more RAM will help.

Having one train per track means the trains can all run at full speed, but it also means that there is going to likely be unused track. So having more DIMMs per channel helps you use the track more efficiently. Sure you may only have 4 platforms at the station but if you had more trains able to run on the track (and passing tracks on them) then you can get higher utilization on the tracks.

Now, where having more DIMMs helps a LOT, and why the E5 series is awesome, is that you can have bigger DIMMs (e.g. bigger trains). So instead of being limited to 16GB unbuffered DIMMs you can have 32GB, 64GB or (soon) 128GB DIMMs. The impact is that you can have more data sitting in RAM, rather than on disk. Even if it is on a SSD, RAM is still (way) faster.

Given current pricing, would I add 2 more 16GB DIMMs and get 64GB total, yes. You can get the equivalent capacity of a small SSD (128GB) for $75 * 8x 16GB DIMMs or

Even though STH runs on a pretty tight budget, the last 1TB of RAM I have purchased has been all 32GB RDIMMs. That is simply because using larger RDIMMs lets me add more memory later on for less money since I have more slots free.

Maybe I should illustrate this and turn it into a main site post.

 

[Submariner]

For video editing your definitely notice the difference. Not so much during the editing, but for previews, rendering and finishing it will matter.

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

Thanks

 

[Submariner]

Think about it this way. With an E5-1600/ 2600 chip the CPU has the memory controller. You have four memory channels and up to 3 DIMMs per channel.

Think about it this way - you have 4 sets of train tracks from the DIMMs to the CPU. With 2 DIMMs, you have two trains and 4 tracks. If you got 2 more DIMMs and put them in the appropriate spots, you would have 4 trains and 4 tracks.

If your application only has enough data (e.g. cargo, passengers or something) for 2 trains or less, you will see a modest performance improvement.

On the other hand, if your application needs more than 2 trains to get data to the CPU, then having more RAM will help.

Having one train per track means the trains can all run at full speed, but it also means that there is going to likely be unused track. So having more DIMMs per channel helps you use the track more efficiently. Sure you may only have 4 platforms at the station but if you had more trains able to run on the track (and passing tracks on them) then you can get higher utilization on the tracks.

Now, where having more DIMMs helps a LOT, and why the E5 series is awesome, is that you can have bigger DIMMs (e.g. bigger trains). So instead of being limited to 16GB unbuffered DIMMs you can have 32GB, 64GB or (soon) 128GB DIMMs. The impact is that you can have more data sitting in RAM, rather than on disk. Even if it is on a SSD, RAM is still (way) faster.

Given current pricing, would I add 2 more 16GB DIMMs and get 64GB total, yes. You can get the equivalent capacity of a small SSD (128GB) for $75 * 8x 16GB DIMMs or

Even though STH runs on a pretty tight budget, the last 1TB of RAM I have purchased has been all 32GB RDIMMs. That is simply because using larger RDIMMs lets me add more memory later on for less money since I have more slots free.

Maybe I should illustrate this and turn it into a main site post.

Thanks so much, for the detailed reply, most helpful.
Wish I had known before. As I need to get this running quickly and am not sure I can add the extra 2 dimms with the huge D15 Noctua cooler in place - will check that tomorrow.

I think this sort of info stuff would be useful to newbies like me , as its not explained in the MB manual.

Much appreciated.

In my ignorance, I assumed some of the memory would be switched over or diverted somehow to use the other two unpopulated channels ( albeit with some expected delay or overhead ) but obviously thats not the case.