Better served if I pulled 4gb of lower speed memory?

[idigweeds]

I recently pulled two of the four DDR3 2gb PC-1066 modules from my computer and replaced them with two 4gb PC-1600 modules, for a new total of 12gb. Not thinking, I didn't realize that even though the two sets are in separate banks the whole lot of them are running at 1066. Would I be better served if I just removed the two PC-1066 modules for now, leaving the second bank empty with only the original total of 8gb?

 

[maxwellmelon]

what is your cpu and what do you use your computer for? sometimes more ram makes the pc better sometimes just the faster ram speed helps while lower overall amount.

if you don't run multi applications at once I would just have 8gb at the faster. if you use a lot of ram hungry apps its better to have more even thought its slower because its still a lot faster then having to use the hard drive as ram (page file)

 

[bgunner]

Most things do not need more than 8GB of memory so unless you are using Photo shop, editing video's or doing a lot of rendering pull the 1066 sticks. The 533MHz boost will help more in most situations than the extra 4GB of memory.

 

[thx1138v2]

If you weren't running out of RAM to begin with, remove the slower RAM. By using different sizes you are killing the dual channel capability, assuming you have it. Most motherboards do these days.

Each module, regardless of size has a 64 bit data path. In a dual channel system where all of the modules are the same, the dual channel feature makes it appear to the memory controller that the data path is 128 bits wide. So each read/write effectively carries twice as much data. It is a requirement of a dual channel system that all modules be the same so using different size modules makes ALL of them appear to be 64 bits wide regardless of what slots they are in. You can't have two slots working one way and the other two working another way. Either the whole memory system is dual channel or none of it is.

 

[idigweeds]

I just took a half hour to type a page long response to your posts, and it evaporated when I selected submit. For the time being... I give up.


OK...I'm back. Can't decide who had the better answer. All of them had valid reasons, so I will just select the one that made the most sense to me. Lack of a double data stream with the presence of the two smaller/slower modules seems to be the better reason, so I will pull them. Thank you all three for your responses.