I just noticed I have a Quad Channel Kit on a Dual Channel Board, Linus says this is bad but not always, advice please?

[NMD83]

Title says it all pretty much....

Was thinking about a ram upgrade and looked at my current kit and noticed it was a quad channel kit.

Am I loosing out? Do I need to check my timings? The video below suggests I could be but how do I tell. I usually just set the XMP and let it run at stock turbo. Been using this kit and board for while now with a 4790k.

Board: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132247&cm_re=MAXIMUS_VII_FORMULAWATCH_DOGS-_-13-132-247-_-Product

Mem Kit: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231629

Linus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D8fhsXqq4o

 

[ubercake]

There is nothing specifically Linus says that tells me why you can't use your quad-channel kit in a dual channel setup with 4 slots. As a matter of fact, all your RAM would be matched across all four slots at that point. That is an ideal situation. As a matter of fact, I have never encountered a stability issue in any dual-channel motherboard by which a quad-channel kit was used.

There is more of a risk when using, for instance, two dual-channel kits (e.g. 2 different 2x4GB dual channel kits) in your quad-channel board. If you buy two dual-channel kits of the same make/model/serial#/product#/lot# and install them in your quad-channel board, they'll likely work just fine. As a matter of fact, I run two dual-channel Ballistic Sport kits in my main gaming PC with this same situation and have never encountered a stability issue. This is not something I would recommend though, because there is a chance it's not going to work.

That whole "don't use quad-channel RAM in your four dual-channel slots" is a load of bunk. They'll work every time unless one or more of the sticks is bad.

I feel like Linus must have been hurting for material when he put that part into his video.

 

[maxwellmelon]

if im looking at your motherboard support memory list right
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VII_FORMULA/HelpDesk_QVL/

on page 16 "G.SKILL F3-1600C9Q-32GXM(XMP) 32GB ( 4x 8GB ) "

which is
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231569&cm_re=F3-1600C9Q-32GXM-_-20-231-569-_-Product

which is cheaper also

 

[NMD83]

There is nothing specifically Linus says that tells me why you can't use your quad-channel kit in a dual channel setup with 4 slots. As a matter of fact, all your RAM would be matched across all four slots at that point. That is an ideal situation. As a matter of fact, I have never encountered a stability issue in any dual-channel motherboard by which a quad-channel kit was used.

There is more of a risk when using, for instance, two dual-channel kits (e.g. 2 different 2x4GB dual channel kits) in your quad-channel board. If you buy two dual-channel kits of the same make/model/serial#/product#/lot# and install them in your quad-channel board, they'll likely work just fine. As a matter of fact, I run two dual-channel Ballistic Sport kits in my main gaming PC with this same situation and have never encountered a stability issue. This is not something I would recommend though, because there is a chance it's not going to work.

That whole "don't use quad-channel RAM in your four dual-channel slots" is a load of bunk. They'll work every time unless one or more of the sticks is bad.

I feel like Linus must have been hurting for material when he put that part into his video.

Hey so, he does say "normally", even makes into a dumb joke. But I was just curious what, if anything, would key me into this. He mentions that there can be problems with timings and says, they expect the quad channel to be in a quad channel board, etc.

I'm pretty into pc hardware, but not like SUPER into it. It's been working for a good while now and I thought recently that I might wanna upgrade my ram, it's not as expensive as it was when I built this computer.

if im looking at your motherboard support memory list right
https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VII_FORMULA/HelpDesk_QVL/

on page 16 "G.SKILL F3-1600C9Q-32GXM(XMP) 32GB ( 4x 8GB ) "

which is
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231569&cm_re=F3-1600C9Q-32GXM-_-20-231-569-_-Product

which is cheaper also

Hey, I'm sorry the way I worded that was ambiguous, I've edited the post.. That is the ram kit I have right now. And I was wondering if I should switch to a dual channel kit, for the most optimal/compatible setup.

Thanks again guys!

 

[Tradesman1]

Linus has made a few things about DRAM where he doesn't know what he's talking about, (you also often see him holding DRAM by the gold contacts which is a no-no 😉 the oils in your skin can get on the contacts and cause problems).... Any way first thing first, DRAM doesn't care what it run in, advertising DRAM as quad channel is normally a marketing thing indicating it's a four or 8 stick set. You can take any one of the sticks and run it in single channel, you can run 2 (or 4 of them) in dual channel, even run 3 in tri-channel. As far as timings go the base timings don't really matter, in the secondary timings the only line of DRAM I've come across that is truly optimized for quad channel operations is the GSkill DDR4 Ripjaws 4 line of DRAM, and the oprtimization is so slight it won't matter. The big thing to keep in mind with a four slot, dual channel mobo, is that 4 sticks will be more stress on the MC 9Memory controller) than 2 sticks would be (which can affect OC potential of your CPU, and depending on the CPU/DRAM mix, could affect stability of the DRAM and need adjustments to help stabilize. Best to use 2 sticks if possible and only use 4 on a dual channel mobo if running the max DRAM it can run (i.e. in your case, you are going for the max and the Tri X will be fine, I've run the same set in 2400 and 2666 on the Formula mobos, and currently run the 2800 set on one of my Z97 Hero (in sig))

More facts in Fiction on DRAM in my articles here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2741495/ddr3-faqs-fiction.html

 

[NMD83]

Linus has made a few things about DRAM where he doesn't know what he's talking about, (you also often see him holding DRAM by the gold contacts which is a no-no 😉 the oils in your skin can get on the contacts and cause problems).... Any way first thing first, DRAM doesn't care what it run in, advertising DRAM as quad channel is normally a marketing thing indicating it's a four or 8 stick set. You can take any one of the sticks and run it in single channel, you can run 2 (or 4 of them) in dual channel, even run 3 in tri-channel. As far as timings go the base timings don't really matter, in the secondary timings the only line of DRAM I've come across that is truly optimized for quad channel operations is the GSkill DDR4 Ripjaws 4 line of DRAM, and the oprtimization is so slight it won't matter. The big thing to keep in mind with a four slot, dual channel mobo, is that 4 sticks will be more stress on the MC 9Memory controller) than 2 sticks would be (which can affect OC potential of your CPU, and depending on the CPU/DRAM mix, could affect stability of the DRAM and need adjustments to help stabilize. Best to use 2 sticks if possible and only use 4 on a dual channel mobo if running the max DRAM it can run (i.e. in your case, you are going for the max and the Tri X will be fine, I've run the same set in 2400 and 2666 on the Formula mobos, and currently run the 2800 set on one of my Z97 Hero (in sig))

More facts in Fiction on DRAM in my articles here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2741495/ddr3-faqs-fiction.html

Thank you very much for your answer. If you don't mind.... Would it be beneficial for me trade up to a differnt kit? And what sort of gain/dollar and I looking at? Say if I want to go to 32gb with higher frequency.

For refrence, my PC use is split between gaming on a 1440 ultra wide and on a VIVE, and using Unity 3D on a quite large(number of files, 4-8k textures) project. I just replaced a gtx980 sli with a single gtx1080.

 

[Tradesman1]

What CPU? Assuming, a K model and guessing 4770K or 4790K, that will play in with what data rates you can run 😉