my RAM purchasing questions.

[WhiteOutFox]

I have 2 questions regarding to RAM purchasing.


Is it ok to buy individual same brand, model, frequency, and latency sticks of RAM for dual channel instead of buying a proper RAM kit?
like for example: buying two individual trident z sticks or mixing ram from another trident z ram kit vs the actual trident z ram kit.
Additional to the previous question: will it enable dual channel and memory overclocking or XMP?

It is ok to buy and add another stick of RAM to your current system for dual channel?
example: I currently have 8GB RAM and im going to add another 8GB RAM(either same brand and model but different manufactured date or different brand but same capacity and speed).
Will this still enable dual channel?

Im currently using a i5 6400, an Asus h110m motherboard and single 2133 MHz RAM.

 

[moocow]

Should be fine if you fine if you stick with same brand, model, speed, and latency. Could be a chance that the RAM modules are different as they switch supplies or a different RAM chip from the same supplier. I mean Kingston pulled similar stuff with their SSD and not tell people.

 

[Bond007]

99+% of the time you will have no issues with buying the same ram separately (not a kit). Try to get the same speed and latency if you are mixing sticks. The motherboard will automatically go to dual channel if your ram sticks are in the correct slots on the motherboard (if you are uncertain which slots, check the motherboard manual). If you mix non-matching sticks the motherboard (if left on auto), should go to the speed of the slower ram. XMP should still work if they are identical. You may have to manually select the XMP profile in the bios.

 

[Marzipan]

note, dual channel mode isn't as important as it used to be. it has a much lesser benefit than it did when the memory controllers were on the north bridge chipset. now that they''re integrated into the CPU die, you can get away with single channel with little performance impact.

of course, there are some times when maintaining dual channel is critical, such as when you are isomg onboard graphics or running memory intensive tasks like video streaming / encoding.

 

[Sagath]

note, dual channel mode isn't as important as it used to be. it has a much lesser benefit than it did when the memory controllers were on the north bridge chipset. now that they''re integrated into the CPU die, you can get away with single channel with little performance impact.

of course, there are some times when maintaining dual channel is critical, such as when you are isomg onboard graphics or running memory intensive tasks like video streaming / encoding.

Well, in OP's case, its irrelevant as they'd have to buy 1x16gb to upgrade, or a second 8gb. Option 2 is usually cheaper.

GN did a test on this a while back, and you're correct, the difference isnt huge but its still in the neighbourhood of ~5% (upwards to 18%) depending on application;

RAM Performance Benchmark: Single-Channel vs. Dual-Channel - Does It Matter? | GamersNexus

stub Memory has a tendency to get largely overlooked when building a new system. Capacity and frequency steal the show, but beyond that, it's largely treated as a check-the-reviews component. Still, a few guidelines exist like not mixing-and-matching kits and purchasing strictly in pairs of two...

www.gamersnexus.net

What wasnt tested in that GN review (its pritty old, from 2014) is that when not limited by GPU for gaming dual vs single channel can have a massive improvement.

But of course the counter-argument of moving the bottleneck somewhere else is that it always shows an effect. If you're bouncing off 8gb of RAM, and add a second 8gb (or 1x16gb) that would just move the bottleneck somewhere else (the gpu probably in the imgur links case).

 

[WhiteOutFox]

note, dual channel mode isn't as important as it used to be. it has a much lesser benefit than it did when the memory controllers were on the north bridge chipset. now that they''re integrated into the CPU die, you can get away with single channel with little performance impact.

of course, there are some times when maintaining dual channel is critical, such as when you are isomg onboard graphics or running memory intensive tasks like video streaming / encoding.

well im a iGPU peasant so to me, this is good news.