Dual channel or Single channel memory for RYZEN?

[Sokrey]

I need help choosing memory for a RYZEN 5 1600. 2x4 2666mhz sticks or 1x8 2666hmz stick
HELP ME!!

 

[Hardware Brad]

Dual channel is faster, but depending on your upgrade path, once you fill up all of the slots, then you have to start replacing sticks with larger ones.

 

[Sokrey]

Dual channel is faster, but depending on your upgrade path, once you fill up all of the slots, then you have to start replacing sticks with larger ones.

yes thats my question. my motherboard will have 2 slots so should i get dual channel right now for good performance or only 1 stick so later I can upgrade to 16gb. but tbh i dont need 16gb because i would only play games like league of legends , overwatch and cs go

 

[Hardware Brad]

If your board will only have 2 slots, I say go for the 1x8gb. The performance increase may not be enough to even notice. Plus it gives a better upgrade path for when you may need 16gb in the future.

 

[Sokrey]

If your board will only have 2 slots, I say go for the 1x8gb. The performance increase may not be enough to even notice. Plus it gives a better upgrade path for when you may need 16gb in the future.

idk beacuse i've seen that league of legends works alot better with dual channel ram

 

[Hardware Brad]

Everything works better in dual channel, but we may be talking about a couple of FPS. It is negligible.

 

[Sokrey]

Everything works better in dual channel, but we may be talking about a couple of FPS. It is negligible.

eh i will think about it. thanks for the help

 

[rgd1101]

Just FYI, mixing ram might not work.
if you are getting 1x8GB now, for the upgrade better to get 2x8GB

 

[cryoburner]

Yeah, typically, it doesn't tend to make much of a difference in most games, particularly when the game is limited more by the GPU's performance than by the CPU. I did find an interesting video comparing Ryzen performance in single and dual channel modes though, and at two different RAM speeds...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u827fdCOCao

The video shows that a dual channel memory configuration can make more of a difference in a CPU-limited scenario. When the games were run on low settings at 720p with an RX 470, there was a notable difference in framerates between the two modes, although the framerates were high enough in most cases that it wouldn't really make a practical difference, especially if you only have a 60Hz screen. At 1080p and high settings, most of the games were GPU limited, and dual channel made almost no difference in most cases. You could of course see a similar kind of performance difference at 1080p high with a sufficiently powerful graphics card though, perhaps with something like a GTX 1080 or RX Vega, but again, you would likely need a 144Hz screen to actually see those differences in most cases.

Personally, I would just look for a motherboard with 4 ram slots if at all possible, to get that bit of extra performance, while still having room for a simple memory upgrade in the future. We will likely see more games benefiting from having more than 8GB of RAM within the next couple years, so you'll probably want to upgrade eventually.