Adding more ram to my PC

jonhobbs · 18 Sep 2018 at 13:20

Hi all, new to this forum so I hope this post is in the right place.

I have a PC with 16GB of ram in it and I'm trying to work out if I can put another 16gb in and what type I need to buy. Here is a screeshot of current specs...

It says I have two slots spare and I think my PC can take 32GB (64-bit Windows 10 can take that, right?) but I have a couple of questions...

A) Do I have to match the existing ram brand/speed etc? I know it has to be DDR3 but I've read something in the past about slots 1/3 having to match and 2/4 having to match. Is this true? In which case, what needs to match?

B) What speed is my current ram? It says 666 but that seems way too low, I swear it was 1666 or 2000 but that number must mean something different. It's a PITA getting the box apart to look so I only want to have to do that once if possible when I buy the RAM.

Is there anything else I need to consider?

jonhobbs · 18 Sep 2018 at 13:33

nlel1975 said:
Says XMP 2400 which means you can run it at 2400mhz with 1.65v

Thanks, so I just buy 2 8GB sticks at 2400mhz of any brand and stick them in the 2 remaining slots?

jonhobbs · 18 Sep 2018 at 13:35

Vince said:
Why do you want to add more ram? What do you use the machine for? No game I know uses 16gb, Lightroom will use everything you have as will some other apps.

Nothing to do with games, it's a work PC and I am a heavy user of multiple desktops for different project. Each project gets a desktop and each one has mutliple programs and many many browser tabs open on it. Just makes it easier not to have to close everything down when switching between projects. As you can see from the screengrab, I'r running at 80% already and I don't even have Photoshop open yet

jonhobbs · 18 Sep 2018 at 14:20

Vince said:
Then you are doing it right. fwiw you can literally stick anything in and it will work. You don't really have to match speed/density as the faster chips will just run at the slower speed. There are some exceptions where things just don't like each other but for the most part you should be ok.

Excellent, thanks for that.

jonhobbs · 18 Sep 2018 at 14:24

Just one more thing, could anybody confirm what speed my current ram is because 666Mhz dowsn't match what I was expecting at all.

jonhobbs · 18 Sep 2018 at 14:38

nlel1975 said:
Just remember it's double data rate DDR so 666 is 1333 but like I said your memory can do 1200 therefore 2400 at DDR rates.

Ok, cool, I thought I'd bought faster RAM than that when I bought the PC so I was confused, but obviously I didn't. DDR3 ram seems to be expensive now so I won't be buying the faster ram anyway, especially if it runs slower when paired with slower ram.