Difference between 2 8GB RAM sticks and 4 4GB RAM sticks?

[legend8887]

Example: Is there a difference between 2 sticks of 8GB each and 4 sticks of 4GB each of G Skill Trident X High Speed Ram? 2400 speed. Same kind just difference in number of sticks, does it affect performance? Which would you get, and why?

 

[nukemaster]

2 sticks is slightly more easy on the memory controller, but most times larger sticks do not have as tight of timings as the smaller ones.

All things being equal, you will not feel the difference, but 2 sticks is more easy on the system and can sometimes give a better chance of using a command rate of 1.

 

[drtweak]

You won't see any real difference in performance. Just with 2 8 gig sticks you leave room for upgrades assuming you only have 4 slots for ram.

 

[bignastyid]

It depends on the motherboard. If the motherboard only support dual channel the difference would be negligible, but if its a quad channel board then 4 sticks would be the fastest.

 

[Gandalf Hitler]

Yep, the more sticks the better. 4 x 4 is better than 2x8. I don't really know why but I'm not that sure its true.

 

[aznricepuff]

Four sticks gives you the option to use them in quad-channel mode if you have a motherboard that supports it. This will give you more bandwidth than dual-channel, but you likely wouldn't see any practical performance gains unless you are running really memory-intensive programs.

Also some motherboards can only support up to 4 GB per DIMM slot, so 4x4GB would be the only option in those circumstances.

 

[nukemaster]

Yep, the more sticks the better. 4 x 4 is better than 2x8. I don't really know why but I'm 100% sure its true.

Not true on a dual channel system(most systems. Intel has some triple and quad channel at the very high end)

With dual channel, your cpu can only access 2 sticks at a time and has a slight delay to jump from stick to sick(since the controller is only talking to 2 sticks at a time). It actually hurts performance, but in a way that no one can ever notice without extremely accurate benchmarks.

In the real world, you will not see any difference unless you have a quad(triple channel cpus are no longer sold mainstream) channel capable cpu(the memory controller on modern systems is in the cpu).

 

[dextermat]

The problem with 4 stick is if you upgrade later, you are going to be stuck with some memory and won't be able to use it.
I bought 4 X 1 gb ddr 3 1066 and never had the chance to use it because the newer memory is cheap and usually sticks are 2/4/8 gb.
Unless I get a free, older, core i3 chip, i'll likely never use it.