Windows 7: Memory suggestions for my system?

I'm looking at purchasing memory for my system. I have all the specs setup here on the site so you can check them out. My mobo/cpu are able to handle up to 1866 speed so that's what I've been looking at. The first thing I spotted was this: Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL10D-16GBXL



anybody have any other suggestions? I'm willing to spend $100-120, and I use my system primarily for gaming (including recording), video editing, and photo editing.

edit: I also saw in the feedback that someone had a similar mobo to mine, the intel version I believe and said they were having issues setting the memory I posted to max speed. Apparently you have to manually set the speed within the BIOS. Good, bad, thoughts?

edit2: Good thing I looked around for a bit. I found these which lower profile, same performance, and cheaper than the last ones I looked it. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231560 I don't see any difference otherwise.

G Skill is generally fine.

I'd also go to Crucial.com and use their configurator to analyze your PC and have it kick out recommended RAM. I've never had any problems with Crucial.

I seriously doubt you'll every notice the differences among latencies other than in a benchmark, but if it nevertheless bothers you, by all means suit yourself.

thank you for the quick response, and yeah I completely forgot about Crucial's site, i'll head over there now! ^^

If you are editing pictures or video, rule of thumb is the more memory the better. If you ever run out while working and have to go elsewhere to store data, the performance will be atrocious. If you can afford 16GB, get 16GB. I have a friend that does picture editing and when he had 4GB, the time to complete 1 job was 20+ minutes of run time. He got 16GB of RAM and the same job was completed in less than a minute. Over and over, same results. He ended up monitoring his RAM usage during the job and he was using 12GB. Moral of the story, it's better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.

Here is what I personally have used and can vouch for its performance and reliability.....

2 x 8GB : Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Desktop Memory Model CMZ16GX3M2A1866C9
4 x 4GB : Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 Desktop Memory Model CMZ16GX3M4X1866C9

You can get those sticks in blue, or black as well.

He has something else going on. My graphic designer will work on RAW format images in Photoshop CS5 and rarely go over 4 GB of usage, even with several other programs, including Illustrator, open in the background.

He is manipulating several large images at once to make a final product. When the job is finished, the RAM usage goes back to normal.

I already ordered the ares. It'll be here monday. I believe it should do me well. Yes, I do plan on using lots of photoshop, including the 3D stuff in extended. I don't need things to be lightning fast, but I don't want to wait around for 5 minutes too load a single high resolution photo. I think I should be okay with the ares tbh. Thank you all for your suggestions, it's always interesting to hear everybody's opinion.