"future proof RAM" ?

[alternety]

I have a Gigabyte P55A motherboard now. I want to go from 8GB to 16GB. What I would like to do is buy fairly high performance memory that will work in my next motherboard with some "safe" level of overclocking. I will probably upgrade the next time in a year or two. I realize that if DDR4 takes over, all bets are off. One part of the questions is the viability of accomplishing this for a motherboard 2 years in the future. Should I buy more performance than I need now for a future installation?

If I had to change MBs right now I would probably get an ivy bridge chipset but use a previous gen CPU. It seems the ivy bridge processors have a serious heat dissipation problem when attempting overclocking because of the way they decided to couple the chip to the heat spreader.

I am thinking 2133 at the moment. I want G.Skill RAM. 2X8 would probably be best, but 4X4 would be significantly cheaper. I am not sure how the memory controller will handle more sticks vs performance. So the issues would be (I think) speed, voltage for the RAM, and RAS, CAS, etc.

Which product lines should I buy from?

What stick characteristics are suggested. If I could have a couple of options to choose from based on price that would be nice.

[Tradesman]

To try and future proof for 16GB I'd go 2x8GB opposed to 4x4, 16GB is rapidly becoming more or less entry level w/ INtel CPUs, and in a year or two 32GB may well be the considered entry level....while some may pooh-pooh this, it was only about 2 years ago that people laughed at us getting more than 4GB of DRAM...With a 2x8GB, you'd be able to expand to 32GB in say an IB setup as I fully expect it to be easier in a year or so to be able to mix sets as I think the XMP standard will be expanded to carry info for more than the current packaged set, i.e. I feel the SPD info will be expanded. I'd also initially look towards 2400 sticks at a minimum, you can always downclock them if needed i.e. 2400/CL10 generally runs fine at 2133/CL9, 1866/CL8 or 1600/CL7. The Trident line of sticks is the newest with the Ripjaws Z line not that much older, prior to that was the Ripjaws X - all work with most all Intel platforms with no problem

[alternety]

What is the difference between the Trident and rip jaws Z line?

[Tradesman]

Tridents have a little fine tuning towards the 3rd Gen Intel CPUs and the Zs had some fine tuning added towards running in true Quad Channel for the socket 2011/X79 chipset

[alternety]

So the Ripjaws Z are probably the preferred approach for future chip sets? Presumably if they are tuned for 4 channel, they are also tuned for the 79 chip set.

[Tradesman]

Believe that's what I said, "for the socket 2011/X79 chipset " , Yes

[Britton30]

The price for 8GB sticks has been falling of late too, put it off for awhile if possible. I think DDR4 is more than a year away and may well be a lot more expensive as new tech usually is, It will require a whole new set of chipsets too.

[Tradesman]

Also good chance current tech will migrate in Hybrid mobos to DDR4, i.e. X79 and Z77, much the same as the socket 775 (longtime DDR2 with the P45 Chipset) migrated to DDR3 as the P45 had a strong MC, the MC in the newer CPUs should be plenty strong enough for initial DDR4