Question Is using all 4 of my RAM slots really that bad ?

[TrippyFries]

So I currently have a 2x8gb stick of ddr4 3200 ram and I've been thinking on upgrading it to have double the ram amounts to 32gb.
But every single time I looked up on YouTube or googling it, people say to just buy a 2x16gb kit instead. But that is the problem for me, money is a little tight since I am also saving up for other stuff so I only have enough to buy another kit of the same brand. Plus I think it's a little wasteful to just throw away a perfectly good stick of ram as well.
Is it really that bad of an idea to just buy the exact same ram kit and just adding it on top of the first kit?

My specs just in case anyone needs it
CPU: Ryzen 5 5600
GPU: 1660 ti
Motherboard: ASRock b550m pro4
PSU: Fractal design ION 750w gold
RAM: Apacer nox 2x8gb 3200mhz cl16

 

[USAFRet]

"Adding" RAM is rarely a good idea.

There is no guarantee that your current 2x sticks will work with 2x new sticks. Even if you buy the same brand/model.

Better to buy 2x 16GB, and sell or repurpose your existing 2x 8GB.

 

[COLGeek]

In general, AM4 and AM5 based systems will actually run slower with all 4 slots populated. In some scenarios, quite a bit slower. Now, that is all relative and would likely have little/no impact on your user perspective. But, you would notice when benchmarking.

@USAFRet is spot on.

 

[bill001g]

The main issue is the actual answer to that question will be how well the memory controller on the CPU chip you happened to buy as well as all the memory chips on ram sticks function together. You never really know until you actually try it.

Your motherboard actually has a very clear chart of how fast memory will run depending on what cpu you have and how many memory slots you use.

https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/B550M Pro4/index.asp#Specification

You will notice none run at 3200 with 4 sticks. This though is with XMP disabled.

The motherboard and cpu support much faster memory if use XMP. They still indicate that if you use 4 sticks you can't run it as fast as 2 sticks.

XMP is overclocking so there really is no guarantee anything above the base will function.

If this was purely a question of can you make it work. It likely can be made to work by reducing the memory speeds and changing other timing settings. When you talk about spending money it is do you gamble or do you buy something you know will work.

 

[punkncat]

The above advice is all correct and is best course of action.

With that said, many of us have been tight on cash and have had to consider taking a course that may or may not be "fraught". IMO the shortcoming of your current build is going to be the 1660ti. I am not sure that the very small framerate/performance difference you might be able to perceive from running that RAM at 3000 (where I suspect it is going to fall) instead of 3200 is enough to be concerned about while money is key. Further to say that the added benefit of having double the RAM is likely to outweigh that very marginal and probably imperceivable difference anyway.

My thoughts? Find the same kit and try them, used if you can, to save more money. Make sure you have an open return policy to work with. If it doesn't work, then it just sets you back a bit timewise.

 

[ThereAndBackAgain]

My recommendation is to stick with what you've got. It's pretty unlikely that you need more than 16 GB of memory. Are you noticing your system memory consistently filling completely up? Do you observe performance drops where lack of free RAM is provably the cause? If not, I wouldn't bother upgrading.

 

[TrippyFries]

The above advice is all correct and is best course of action.



With that said, many of us have been tight on cash and have had to consider taking a course that may or may not be "fraught". IMO the shortcoming of your current build is going to be the 1660ti. I am not sure that the very small framerate/performance difference you might be able to perceive from running that RAM at 3000 (where I suspect it is going to fall) instead of 3200 is enough to be concerned about while money is key. Further to say that the added benefit of having double the RAM is likely to outweigh that very marginal and probably imperceivable difference anyway.

My thoughts? Find the same kit and try them, used if you can, to save more money. Make sure you have an open return policy to work with. If it doesn't work, then it just sets you back a bit timewise.

I see, so if that were to be the case then I should save up for a new GPU instead then, and afterwards if I want to I could buy myself a new kit of 2x16gb instead? As the thing that I've been saving on is actually buying a used 6700xt, a monitor(upgrading from a fhd 60hz), and more storage. So I was having a dilemma on deciding which to buy first.

 

[bill001g]

I would assume if you are talking about a gpu upgrade as being important you are talking about gaming as your primary use.

In general the GPU is the most important thing but the rest of the computer does matter and makes this a complex subject. You couldn't for example slap a 5090 in your current machine and expect it could then run cyberpunk at high frame rates at 4k. The "bottleneck" moves around something always is limiting the performance even if you buy the best of everything. For games it tends to be GPU first, CPU second and then memory.

In any case you best option is to actually monitor the usage. Simple resource monitor in windows will give you basic cpu and memory usages. To see more advanced stuff like GPU usage and finer detail on cpu and memory a free program called hwinfo64.

You should be able to get a general idea what is hitting high usage during your usage of whatever program or game you like. The issue is as soon as you upgrade that something else will then hit high usage. Do not get stuck in the trap of upgrading because of this though, more does the machine do what you need it to do.

 

[TrippyFries]

I would assume if you are talking about a gpu upgrade as being important you are talking about gaming as your primary use.

In general the GPU is the most important thing but the rest of the computer does matter and makes this a complex subject. You couldn't for example slap a 5090 in your current machine and expect it could then run cyberpunk at high frame rates at 4k. The "bottleneck" moves around something always is limiting the performance even if you buy the best of everything. For games it tends to be GPU first, CPU second and then memory.

In any case you best option is to actually monitor the usage. Simple resource monitor in windows will give you basic cpu and memory usages. To see more advanced stuff like GPU usage and finer detail on cpu and memory a free program called hwinfo64.

You should be able to get a general idea what is hitting high usage during your usage of whatever program or game you like. The issue is as soon as you upgrade that something else will then hit high usage. Do not get stuck in the trap of upgrading because of this though, more does the machine do what you need it to do.

I see, well it is true that I use this PC more for gaming, and also as a daily driver for my uni work, I am planning on buying a new GPU mostly because of the limited vram that I currently have since I wanted to play more modern games that needed a high vram for better graphics.
but then I noticed that the RAM usage was quite high when i was playing games and it is slowing things down like having a video playing in the background whilst playing a few games (i.e. looking up a tutorial with a picture in picture mode on top of the game). which is why I was thinking on maybe adding more ram on the PC

 

[bill001g]

DDR4 memory has increased a lot in price since I last purchased any. Used to be a fairly inexpensive thing to add.

But as stated by others above if you are going to try to just add 2 sticks make sure you buy them from someplace you can return them.

Since you are running very basic memory speeds it should work. You might though have to turn the clock rates down a bit.

When you first do it boot memtest86+. Let it run overnight. If it gets no errors you will never have issue in actual use. If you see errors you adjust the timings and retest until you get something stable.

The main reason people buy kits of memory is so they don't have to learn all the details about memory setting and testing details they just want something that works out of the box.