RAM Placement

With my apps more RAM is a way to load more instruments.
I enjoy having overhead but on Z97/Z170 boards is it better to use 2 x 8Gb DIMMs or 4 x 4Gb DIMMs....

Thanks.

with 2x8 you have room to expand later.
With 4x4 you likely can get better CAS latency

Nasgul said:

You can use whatever combo you want, as long as they match. For example: 2x2 + 4x4 (=12GB).
On my previous board I ran a 1x4 and 2 are from G.Skill and the other two from Xtreem, both same speeds but different timings, overclocking wasn't that stable above 3.0ghz.

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Yes, while this can be done, I have noticed issues in applications which require very large amounts of memory used, such as an application needing 5-6GB of RAM.
If there are lots of smaller apps and programs running, there shouldn't be an issue, but with much larger apps, higher capacity memory sticks can help performance.

As a rule of thumb, it is always better to run fewer, and higher capacity memory sticks over a higher quantity of smaller memory sticks, even though they may both equate to the same amount of overall memory.
I moved from 2x4GB and 2x2GB (12GB), to 2x8GB memory sticks, and noticed a huge improvement in performance in VMs, video editing software, and games like Far Cry 4, even though my memory usage has never exceeded ~10GB.

Zangmonkey said:

with 2x8 you have room to expand later.
With 4x4 you likely can get better CAS latency

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I've never heard of getting better latency with more memory sticks.
Since DDR1, better latency can be had with fewer memory sticks, so in this case, two will always have better latency than four.

Nasgul said:

You can use whatever combo you want, as long as they match. For example: 2x2 + 4x4 (=12GB).
On my previous board I ran a 1x4 and 2 are from G.Skill and the other two from Xtreem, both same speeds but different timings, overclocking wasn't that stable above 3.0ghz.

Click to expand...

Yes right

get the bigger sticks

Red Falcon said:

I've never heard of getting better latency with more memory sticks.
Since DDR1, better latency can be had with fewer memory sticks, so in this case, two will always have better latency than four.

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I believe he means for the same price you can likely buy the same speed ram and get ones with better timings for the same price (in a 4x4 kit), not that you couldn't just adjust the timings yourself if it isn't garbage ram.