Mixing Ram

[h0mez]

I have a dual cpu setup, is it okay to say put 4 4gb sticks on one side, and 5 4gb sticks on the other? What are the cons of doing this? It seems to run fine.

 

[twin_savage]

There aren't really any major cons to doing this. Depending on what cpu (and motherboard) you have, running 2 dimms per can make the ram run at a slower speed, its usually just one speed level down so if the ram was running at 1600MHz at 1 dimm per channel it would then run at 1333MHz if 2 dimms per channel are used (all the ram, even on the channels that still only have 1 dimm). If your worried about this you can always check in the bios to see what speed the memory is running at.

 

[h0mez]

I dont mean running 2 dimms per channel, i mean running 2 dimms on 1 CPU, and 3, 4,5 dimms on the other.

Lets says I have 1 stick of each of the following, 4gb, 8gb, 16gb and i want to use them all in a dual cpu machine. Is there negative to doing something 1 cpu has the 16gb stick, and the other has the 4gb and 8gb stick

 

[Nathan_P]

Yes, it should still work but you will not get full throughput, the memory controller is designed to either work in triple (lga 1366/1356) or quad channel mode (opteron 6xxx,E5 vx). I.e max speed can only be gained if all 3/4 slots are populated by the same size/speed ram - this is why most memory come as a dual/triple/quad channel kit. If you have older hardware then it may not make much of a difference