Question Is 64gigs of DDR5 ram (2*16gig in dual channel + 32gig in a single chain) better than 32gigs of DDR5 ram (2*16gig in dual channel)??

[minanasery]

Hello all,

I've been building a gaming setup recently based on the following components:

Intel i5 13400f
Aorus B760M Elite AX DDR5
Aorus RTX4070 Master
Kingston Fury Beast 64 Gigs DDR5-5200 Ram (2*16 Gigs into a dual channel, 1*32 Gigs into a single channel)
1TB Samsung 870 evo SSD
480G Kingston A3000

Now i know for sure a dual channel setup would make more sense than a flex setup as mine now, but my market where I live is having a shortage now on 32gb DDR5 sticks at the moment, and I couldn't find more than one. Therefore i thought of taking advantage with a dual channel setup with along with a single channel together. However, I ended up with running this setup with only 4800Mhz even without XMP (CPUz shows only 2400Mhz)


My question is, would a 32gig DDR5 (2*16 in a dual channel) work better than my current setup (64gig : 32 in a single channel and 2*16 in a dual channel)? Or maybe my setup is considered better? And if there is any difference, would it be that significant so I could take an action to remove that single 32gig from the single channel?

Much Thanks,
Mina

 

[Bob.B]

Hello all,

I've been building a gaming setup recently based on the following components:

Intel 13400ft
Aorus B760M Elite AX DDR5
Aorus RTX4070 Master
Kingston Fury Beast 64 Gigs DDR5-5200 Ram (2*16 Gigs into a dual channel, 1*32 Gigs into a single channel)
1TB Samsung 870 evo SSD
480G Kingston A3000

Now i know for sure a dual channel setup would make more sense than a flex setup as mine now, but my market where I live is having a shortage now on 32gb DDR5 sticks at the moment, and I couldn't find more than one. Therefore i thought of taking advantage with a dual channel setup with along with a single channel together. However, I ended up with running this setup with only 4800Mhz even without XMP (CPUz shows only 2400Mhz)


My question is, would a 32gig DDR5 (2*16 in a dual channel) work better than my current setup (64gig : 32 in a single channel and 2*16 in a dual channel)? Or maybe my setup is considered better? And if there is any difference, would it be that significant so I could take an action to remove that single 32gig from the single channel?

Much Thanks,
Mina

If you install just the 2x16 and run your stuff are you using all the ram?

 

[USAFRet]

How much RAM do you actually use?

 

[Misgar]

I have a sneaking suspicion that if you run three DIMMs, they'll all run in single channel mode (as will a single DIMM).

You can confirm this by running a memory benchmark, firstly with 2x16GB, then with 2x16GB + 1x32GB. I use Aida64.

Half-bandwidth may not be a too much of a disadvantage, if your apps benefit from more than 32GB RAM.

 

[Zerk2012]

I have a sneaking suspicion that if you run three DIMMs, they'll all run in single channel mode (as will a single DIMM).

You can confirm this by running a memory benchmark, firstly with 2x16GB, then with 2x16GB + 1x32GB. I use Aida64.

Half-bandwidth may not be a too much of a disadvantage, if your apps benefit from more than 32GB RAM.

It's not something I would do adding a single 32GB stick.
But it should run in flex mode meaning till you use over the first 32GB It's dual channel, then it would be single.

 

[minanasery]

How much RAM do you actually use?

Less than 32gig for gaming, more maybe for virtualization

 

[minanasery]

How much RAM do you actually use?

I have a sneaking suspicion that if you run three DIMMs, they'll all run in single channel mode (as will a single DIMM).

You can confirm this by running a memory benchmark, firstly with 2x16GB, then with 2x16GB + 1x32GB. I use Aida64.

Half-bandwidth may not be a too much of a disadvantage, if your apps benefit from more than 32GB RAM.

Interesting, let me run this test and I'll provide you a feedback

 

[DSzymborski]

It's a bit like asking if a gallon of milk is better than a quart of milk. Whether it is or not depends solely on what you need. The best RAM amount for you is the amount that meets your needs with some room to spare. Now, configuration can be a thing -- I'd much prefer a 64 GB kit of RAM than a FrankenRAM situation -- but comparing amounts of RAM is not an issue of better.

 

[Zerk2012]

I agree with above.
If you buy a 32GB stick of memory and it doesn't work with what you already have then your right back were you started just out more money.
I would buy a 2 X 32GB set if I needed 64GB.

 

[minanasery]

I have a sneaking suspicion that if you run three DIMMs, they'll all run in single channel mode (as will a single DIMM).

You can confirm this by running a memory benchmark, firstly with 2x16GB, then with 2x16GB + 1x32GB. I use Aida64.

Half-bandwidth may not be a too much of a disadvantage, if your apps benefit from more than 32GB RAM.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if you run three DIMMs, they'll all run in single channel mode (as will a single DIMM).

You can confirm this by running a memory benchmark, firstly with 2x16GB, then with 2x16GB + 1x32GB. I use Aida64.

Half-bandwidth may not be a too much of a disadvantage, if your apps benefit from more than 32GB RAM.

I've checked the Aida64 on (2*16 + 1*32Gb) memory configuration under the Chipset section, and I'm not sure if Aida64 is correct on this, but it show as a Quad-channel setup 128-bit (Active mode), could this be true? I just checked my motherboard's specs from Gigabyte website and it said "Dual Channel DDR5：4*SMD DIMMs with XMP 3.0 Memory Module Support"

If this is the case, how could that be when I only inserting 3 memory sticks at the moment? shouldn't that be flex-mode instead?

However, under the SDP section, I can see that all of the 3 sticks have 64 bit bandwidth, with memory speed written as "DDR5-4800(2400MHZ)" since I'm not using XMP (or didn't manage to get it run from bios succesfully).

For the benchmark, it shows exactly as "Core i5-13400f / CPU Speed 4600Mhz / Chipset B670 Ext. / Channel Quad DDR5-4000 / 40-39-39-76 CR2 / Memory Read 56281Mb per s / Memory Write 57439Mb", but it shows Memory bus as 1995.1Mhz, which to be honest, i'm not quite sure if that is the actual bus speed or the effective speed in general.

Could you help with some insights?