Do I need 4 banks of RAM?

darrenkarp · 26 Oct 2019 at 19:08

Hi All,

I have an Asus Maximus Hero VIII mobo with 16GB of RAM in 4 modules currently. Am looking to go to 32GB or perhaps 64GB. Do I need to have 4 modules of RAM in either case or would two do the job?

Cheers
Daz

Bounce · 26 Oct 2019 at 19:09

darrenkarp said:
Hi All,

I have an Asus Maximus Hero VIII mobo with 16GB of RAM in 4 modules currently. Am looking to go to 32GB or perhaps 64GB. Do I need to have 4 modules of RAM in either case or would two do the job?

Cheers
Daz

Two would do the job

darrenkarp · 26 Oct 2019 at 19:18

Thanks but is it better or worse to fill all 4 slots available on my mobo?

andy_mk3 · 26 Oct 2019 at 19:26

Two sticks will perform better than four. However, unless you're pushing for really fast and tight timings you really would not notice the difference.

darrenkarp · 26 Oct 2019 at 19:40

Thanks. Not pushing timings, etc. If I bought a 32GB kit (2 sticks) am I okay to keep the other 2 sticks of ram (8GB) in the other two slots as well?

JasonM · 27 Oct 2019 at 14:31

darrenkarp said:
Thanks. Not pushing timings, etc. If I bought a 32GB kit (2 sticks) am I okay to keep the other 2 sticks of ram (8GB) in the other two slots as well?

This is 100% fine to do, however memory speed will be restricted to the slowest DIMM pair.

Install your DIMM's so the 2 x 16gb are in one matched bank, and the 2 x 8gb are in another matched bank.

Threepwood · 27 Oct 2019 at 16:15

JasonM said:
This is 100% fine to do, however memory speed will be restricted to the slowest DIMM pair.

Install your DIMM's so the 2 x 16gb are in one matched bank, and the 2 x 8gb are in another matched bank.

100% is a bit too optimistic, chances are good yeah, but I've had missmatched pairs before that did not play together very well.

MaXxBoulton · 28 Oct 2019 at 09:53

Threepwood said:
100% is a bit too optimistic, chances are good yeah, but I've had missmatched pairs before that did not play together very well.

100% is spot on, not optimistic.
You need to put the slower of the kits on the main bank. Normally channel B then the system will run all sticks at that speed. If the do it the other way this is when you run into problems.

Threepwood · 28 Oct 2019 at 11:43

MaXxBoulton said:
100% is spot on, not optimistic.
You need to put the slower of the kits on the main bank. Normally channel B then the system will run all sticks at that speed. If the do it the other way this is when you run into problems.

I know from first hand experience that rarely, no matter what you do, missmatched ram will sometimes not work. This has only happened once with me, with a pair of g-skill and a pair of crutial.

If you have not experienced this then fair enough, but telling folk that 100% of the time it will work is just wrong.

MaXxBoulton · 28 Oct 2019 at 12:16

Threepwood said:
I know from first hand experience that rarely, no matter what you do, missmatched ram will sometimes not work. This has only happened once with me, with a pair of g-skill and a pair of crutial.

If you have not experienced this then fair enough, but telling folk that 100% of the time it will work is just wrong.

This happens because you haven't looked at the ram right.

If you have 2 kits and there both 2000mhz 11 11 11 28. At first glance they look matched. But you have to run the ram kits one at a time and note down all the times in bios there will be a difference you just have to look hard.

Even the same ram from you different kits that state the same specs can and normally will have differnt sub timing.

Threepwood · 28 Oct 2019 at 13:13

MaXxBoulton said:
This happens because you haven't looked at the ram right.

If you have 2 kits and there both 2000mhz 11 11 11 28. At first glance they look matched. But you have to run the ram kits one at a time and note down all the times in bios there will be a difference you just have to look hard.

Even the same ram from you different kits that state the same specs can and normally will have differnt sub timing.

Mate, I tried absolutley everything.