Mixing sets of RAM

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Keolv

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Jan 2, 2015
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So I have 2x4GB ram at 1333Mhz and I decided to upgrade to 2x8GB 1600Mhz.
Just to test, I put both sets in, each in it's own dual channel, and it seems to be working fine, except for the whole thing working at 1333Mhz, which was expected. I did some benchmarks and I can't see the performance increase from 1600Mhz anyway, so are there any other potential problems from using 2x4GB and 2x8GB RAM together ?
 
It should be fine, especially if you're only trying to run it all at the speed of the slower memory.
 
Yep, it should work fine...although RAM always works best with matched pairs of size and make.

The thing is though, do you really need 24GB of ram? I have 16GB and that's sort of excess. If I was you I'd sell the other set to put some money back in your pocket!
 
if it tests stable it should be fine, but run a few different stress tests to verify. Sometimes when matching up various sets of ram, especially in the older days, you would get some random incompatibility issue between either the ram chips, eproms, or mobo bios's/chipsets. Running those 1600mhz modules at 1333 though is the right move, and gives u the best shot at the chips playing nice together.
 
Keolv said:
So I have 2x4GB ram at 1333Mhz and I decided to upgrade to 2x8GB 1600Mhz.
Just to test, I put both sets in, each in it's own dual channel, and it seems to be working fine, except for the whole thing working at 1333Mhz, which was expected. I did some benchmarks and I can't see the performance increase from 1600Mhz anyway, so are there any other potential problems from using 2x4GB and 2x8GB RAM together ?
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just that it'll run at the slowest sticks speed.

There maybe boot issues with XMP profiles not being set correctly so you'll need to tinker in BIOS if that happens but ussually that doesn't happen. I had some issues with that with one computer once. I just took other the other 16GB because I was lazy.
 
Thanks, so the question is: is 24GB 1333Mhz better than 16GB 1600Mhz ?
The higher frequency makes almost no difference in applications, and the extra 8GB RAM I'm not that likely to use. I use quite a lot of RAM because I tend to multitask a lot, but I don't think I'd go over 16GB.
 
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Keolv said:
Thanks, so the question is: is 24GB 1333Mhz better than 16GB 1600Mhz ?
The higher frequency makes almost no difference in applications, and the extra 8GB RAM I'm not that likely to use. I use quite a lot of RAM because I tend to multitask a lot, but I don't think I'd go over 16GB.
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depends timings and what ur doing.

16GB is a solid amount of RAM if your not RAMDisking, editing, or anything thats uniquely guzzling RAM or have 40 tabs, 3 games, and Photoshop open.

I personally can tolerate 16GB but i do get some issues with that amount, hence why i just bought 32GB but I tend to multitask and/or leave a crap ton of stuff open.

If you came from 8GB and weren't getting out of memory errors than 16GB is more than enough.

Post the timings of the RAM and that can help me recommend u the best option. My gut is stick with just 1600MHz.
 
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The 1600Mhz RAM has XMP but I haven't enabled it yet:
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I think I will stick with the 16GB but keep the 8GB and install them again in case I need more ram in the future.
 
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In the past I have had no issues mixing ram but I prefer to buy all of my ram at once from the same manufacturer.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
In the past I have had no issues mixing ram but I prefer to buy all of my ram at once from the same manufacturer.
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agreed.


At OP, Yea the 1600 is a bit better in both regards. If you dont have capacity issues stick with the 1600MTs
 
I have just done a very similar thing except that mine are both DDR3-1600 but different manufacturers and sizes, 2x8GB 1.5V Crucial Ballistix Sport (new)and 2x4GB 1.35V Samsung Green all running at 1.5V. I am currently testing an overclock, 1866 was a bit error prone at 9-9-9-28 2T but okay at 1800 2T. 1700 worked fine at 9-9-9-28 1T. I have got it to 2199 at 11-11-11-28 2T with limited testing but 2304 gave errors with limited tuning, no 2nd or 3rd timing adjustments. Adjusting the memory timings of the 2nd and 3rd timings should get it error free. However at 2300 will probably mean looser primary timings as I have not gone looser than 11-11-11-28 so far.

I am pleased that 24GB is working okay and it should make a difference when I have 3 browsers running 1000-2000 tabs plus other appz open. You probably know how much a memory hog Firefox and derivatives such as Palemoon are. My browser quickly got to 5GB memory usage unless I keep closing it down. I think that an extension might be partly to blame.
 
**MaRVeL** said:
I have just done a very similar thing except that mine are both DDR3-1600 but different manufacturers and sizes, 2x8GB 1.5V Crucial Ballistix Sport (new)and 2x4GB 1.35V Samsung Green all running at 1.5V. I am currently testing an overclock, 1866 was a bit error prone at 9-9-9-28 2T but okay at 1800 2T. 1700 worked fine at 9-9-9-28 1T. I have got it to 2199 at 11-11-11-28 2T with limited testing but 2304 gave errors with limited tuning, no 2nd or 3rd timing adjustments. Adjusting the memory timings of the 2nd and 3rd timings should get it error free. However at 2300 will probably mean looser primary timings as I have not gone looser than 11-11-11-28 so far.

I am pleased that 24GB is working okay and it should make a difference when I have 3 browsers running 1000-2000 tabs plus other appz open. You probably know how much a memory hog Firefox and derivatives such as Palemoon are. My browser quickly got to 5GB memory usage unless I keep closing it down. I think that an extension might be partly to blame.
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did you mix voltages? thats a bad bad thing to do and IIRC 1.5v on 1.35v is the absolute max and strongly discouraged but I could be recalling wrong.

BTW I miss opera 12 so badly. It was the best browser ever but all tabs being on a single thread was killer. It hurt so bad plus it has memory leak issues. It used 16GB on me one day (only had 16GB back then :rolleyes:
 
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