DescentBB

So what do I need to worry about if I wanted to swap out the two 2 4GB Crucial memory sticks I currently have on my Intel DZ77BH55K Z77 motherboard. Was looking to beef up the two sticks to 8GB each, so I was looking at some GSkill F3-1600C9D-16GXM (DDR3-1600 CL9-9-9-24)? Will it work? Is the shorter latency an issue?

EDIT - ooh, I see GSkill has a RAM configurator on their support web site ...

oh buggers. looks like this might not work. I even thought about throwing 8MB sticks in all 4 slots if the price was right, but this RAM configurator doesn't even seem to show 8MB sticks as compatible, even though the board is supposed to be able to support 32 GB.

My head hurts.

Find the motherboard manual online and it will tell you what you use

The configurator scan at Crucial pointed me to this item -
Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3L 1600 (PC3L 12800) Desktop Memory Model CT2K102464BD160B
From "Infinilink"; in stock, ships from .... Australia. So there's that

The configurator at GSkills listed a number of options, such as -
F3-8500CL7D-8GBRL
Ripjaws
DDR3-1066 CL7-7-7 1.50V
8GB (2x4GB)
But I wonder if the flashy heat sink on the Ripjaws stick might interfere with the fan on the Cooler master CPU heatsink.

The motherboard manual says -
"1.4 System Memory
The board has four DIMM sockets and supports the following memory features:
1.5 V DDR3 SDRAM DIMMs with gold plated contacts, with the option to raise the voltage to support higher performance DDR3 SDRAM DIMMs.
1.35 V Low Voltage DDR3 DIMMs (JEDEC specification)
Unbuffered, single-sided or double-sided DIMMs with the following restriction:
Double-sided DIMMs with x16 organization are not supported.
•
32 GB maximum total system memory (using 4 Gb memory technology). Refer to Section 2.1.1 on page 45 for information on the total amount of addressable memory.
Minimum total system memory: 1 GB using 512 MB x16 module
•
Non-ECC DIMMs
•
Serial Presence Detect
DDR3 1600 MHz, DDR3 1333 MHz, and DDR3 1066 MHz SDRAM DIMMs
•
Note: DDR3 1600 MHz DIMMs are only supported by 3 processor family processors
XMP version 1.3 performance profile support for memory speeds of 1600 MHz and higher
NOTE
To be fully compliant with all applicable DDR SDRAM memory specifications, the board should be populated with DIMMs that support the Serial Presence Detect (SPD) data
structure. This allows the BIOS to read the SPD data and program the chipset to accurately configure memory settings for optimum performance. If non-SPD memory
is installed, the BIOS will attempt to correctly configure the memory settings, but performance and reliability may be impacted or the DIMMs may not function under the
determined frequency."

Not sure what to think about all this. Should I roll the dice with Infinilink from Australia? Anyone use them before?
Go with 4 of the 4MB Ripjaw sticks (if I can move the fan up a little on the CPU heat sink)?
Now there's this SPD data structure compatibility issue; how important is that?

Am I going about this in a productive way? (I thought this was gonna be easy)
Or am I just wasting my time trying to look for compatible DDR3 memory?

Or is there somewhere else I should be looking for these memory sticks?

I see Corsair has a selection of options at this link for the Intel Z77 chipset -
https://tinyurl.com/yeyjahs4

A little pricier but still not too bad