Clock speed also plays a role. In general faster RAM needs to run with looser timings than slower RAM. If you hear of someone overclocking RAM you'll usually also hear that they are loosening the timings. For this reason you should get the fastest RAM that you can forsee needing, but not much faster than you'll need. This optimizes the clock speed vs latencies.
LOL, I think I done opened a can of worms.
It does sound like fun though. Upon further review, I see the EVGA 790i moboard is DDR3/2000 but only dual channel with a max of 8GB. Doesn't that mean I should do this in multiples of 2, i.e., 2x2GB vice 3x2GB? Looks like I ought to start with a 4GB (2x2GB) and add 2 or 4 more GB later if needed.
Thanks for the tutoral on the timing and overclocking. TD says that the OCZ Reaper is very good for this sort of thing so I'm going with that. Which one is now the question. Here are the options:
1150 at 5-6-6-18
1333 at 6-6-6-20
1600 at 7-7-7-24
1800 at 8-8-8-27
The moboard itself is rated at 2000 but, from what you're saying I'm actually limited by the FSB. Assuming I overclock to 3.8GHz then the 1333 RAM looks right and it's a 20% jump in latency betweeen the 1333 and 1600 which seems like a fairly large jump. How much higher should I be able to push the E8500? Enough to justify the 1600 or 1800 RAM or are my gains offset by the increased latency?
Edit: I may have answered this myself. Assuming I overclock the CPU to a touch over 4GHz, my FSB would be 1800 which gives me 1350. From what TD says about the reaper I'd think the 1333 would handle this just fine. Am I on track here?
