Does the MSI Z97 Gaming 5 allow 3 Ram sticks?

[Darklight101]

I read up about some motherboards supporting Dual channel as well as a single channel. I was wondering if this montherboard allows this. Or would all the RAM be set to single channel?

 

[Tradesman1]

What are the sticks? If they all play nice, it will run in Flex mode which may be a combo of single and dual or possibly, i.e. an 8GB and 2 4GB sticks could run all in dual 😉

 

[amtseung]

Dual channel only works with multiples of 2 of matching sticks (they come in kits for a reason). Otherwise, it'll be in flex mode and everything will be in single channel, at least on this motherboard (I have the same one). Triple channel is pretty dead, don't count on modern motherboards supporting it.

 

[iamacow]

To answer your question, all sticks would run in single channel if you have 3. You need matching sticks and in pairs for dual channel to work.

 

[Tradesman1]

Strongly suggest you all read up on Flex mode, I covered it in my FAQs article, Item 7

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ddr3-dram-faq,review-33220.html

 

[iamacow]

You mean this?

"Intel Flex Memory technology dates back to 2004. It lets you use DRAM of different capacities to enable the exploitation of the motherboard’s multi-channel architecture whenever possible. Maybe you already have two 2GB DRAM modules and want to add a 4GB module. Generally, you would be running the 2x 2GB set in dual-channel mode (normally, slots 1/3 or 2/4). With flex mode, you can put the 4GB one in slot 1 and the two 2GB modules in slots 3/4 so that you have 4GB in each channel.

Flex mode can also take into account uneven amounts in the channels — if, say, that 4GB module were 8GB, then you would have 8GB running in dual-channel mode and the leftover 4GB as added capacity in single-channel mode. Another possibility would be to have 8GB in slot one, 2GB in slot two, 4GB in slot three and 4GB in slot four, giving you 18GB total or 16GB in dual-channel mode and 2GB in single-channel mode. This is sort of an odd setup, but I have seen it used. It is more common to have 2 x 8GB and 2 x 4GB where, ideally, it would be placed 8-4-8-4 so that 12GB is in each channel.

While this is a nice feature, I don’t suggest planning to buy DRAM to run in this manner. There are no guarantees that any DRAM you buy will play well with what you already have. We will expand on this in Part 2."

I never seen a motherboard with this feature in over 15 years of building computers.

 

[Tradesman1]

You mean this?

"Intel Flex Memory technology dates back to 2004. It lets you use DRAM of different capacities to enable the exploitation of the motherboard’s multi-channel architecture whenever possible. Maybe you already have two 2GB DRAM modules and want to add a 4GB module. Generally, you would be running the 2x 2GB set in dual-channel mode (normally, slots 1/3 or 2/4). With flex mode, you can put the 4GB one in slot 1 and the two 2GB modules in slots 3/4 so that you have 4GB in each channel.

Flex mode can also take into account uneven amounts in the channels — if, say, that 4GB module were 8GB, then you would have 8GB running in dual-channel mode and the leftover 4GB as added capacity in single-channel mode. Another possibility would be to have 8GB in slot one, 2GB in slot two, 4GB in slot three and 4GB in slot four, giving you 18GB total or 16GB in dual-channel mode and 2GB in single-channel mode. This is sort of an odd setup, but I have seen it used. It is more common to have 2 x 8GB and 2 x 4GB where, ideally, it would be placed 8-4-8-4 so that 12GB is in each channel.

While this is a nice feature, I don’t suggest planning to buy DRAM to run in this manner. There are no guarantees that any DRAM you buy will play well with what you already have. We will expand on this in Part 2."

I never seen a motherboard with this feature in over 15 years of building computers.

_________________

Yes and I see them all the time, as well as having helped a few hundred people here in the forums with the proper arrangement of sticks, i.e. on a normal 4 stick dual channel mobo an 8GB in slot 1 and 4GB sticks in slots 3-4 will run full dual (if they play, no guarantees), could put an 8GB in slot 1, a 4 in slot 3 and a 2 in slot 4 and effectively you have 12GB running dual, and the odd 2 on the 8GB stick running single.

That's was just one of the many things we see all the time in the forums and prompted me to write the article - which is actually published in two parts (this was the FAQs, part two was (in my title Fiction

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ddr-dram-myths,4155.html

DRAM is probably the least understood component in a system 😉

 

[Darklight101]

Thanks for the feedback so far guys!

The original sticks and the new one are all HyperX FURY. 2x8GB + the new 1x4GB stick.