[SOLVED] Question about RAM upgrades

Feb 24, 2020
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Hey, so about a week ago, I built my first gaming PC, and I was careful to not make any mistakes when building it. Fortunately, I didn't, but I quickly noticed that I had only bought a single stick of DDR4 1x16 3200Mhz ram for my motherboard, so I was bottlenecked into having only single channel ram at the time. I was wondering if I bought the exact same brand but with only 8 GBs, would it work out so that my total ram would be an unsatisfying 24 GBs? My initial thoughts were that it would be kinda scuffed or it wouldn't work at all since it's 2 separate modules of GBs (1x16 vs 1x8). Would you need to have the same brand of RAM and its corresponding storage in order for it to maximize the usage of dual channeling? I apologize sincerely if this sounds too stupid for me to ask, since I'm only just a beginner that just built his first PC, but thank you in advance if you would so kindly give me advice.

My specs are as follows:
CPU: Ryzen 5 2600 (not overclocked because I lack PC case fans)
GPU: MSI 1060 Aero ITX 6GB
Ram: Patriot Viper Steelseries 1x16 3200mhz DDR4
PSU: Thermaltake Smart 600w
Motherboard: MSI B450M Gaming Plus mATX

The ram I bought: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N3Z1RP8/ref=twister_B07PV55MV1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
And the ram I was thinking of buying: https://www.amazon.com/Patriot-3200...sprefix=patriot+steel+,electronics,192&sr=1-3
 
Feb 24, 2020
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Get a 2x8GB kit, like this: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/jB...-2-x-8-gb-ddr4-3600-memory-f4-3600c16d-16gvkc That way it's guaranteed to use the same ICs and therefore be compatible with each other.
As for running 2x8 + 1x16, I strongly recommend you don't do it, unless you need 24GB of memory. It will hinder performance still. Just sell the 1x16GB stick.
What if I bought the exact same stick? Would the performance be better? I was gonna buy 32 GBs of ram eventually, but I guess I'll do it now since I messed up a week ago, and I might as well keep that for future upgrades, ie now of course.
 
What if I bought the exact same stick? Would the performance be better? I was gonna buy 32 GBs of ram eventually, but I guess I'll do it now since I messed up a week ago, and I might as well keep that for future upgrades, ie now of course.
If you bought another 16GB stick? If it's the exact same, it's still not guaranteed to work with the other 16GB stick, due to possible IC mismatch or bin mismatch. Memory manufacturers sell two dimm kits for a reason.
If you're just playing games, 32GB is really overkill. 16GB is more than enough. Just buy the two dimm kit I linked above and sell the old 16GB dimm.
 
Feb 24, 2020
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Those kind of combinations have no guarantee to be compatible together. You can make any combinations you want and do your own testing with no guarantees.
What counts as being "Dual Channel" exactly? Is it the exact same two sticks of RAM being put together on the motherboard and clocking them at the exact same speeds in order to gain more performance? Right now as I see it I'm losing about 17% performance in several games due to me only having single channel RAM.
 
What counts as being "Dual Channel" exactly? Is it the exact same two sticks of RAM being put together on the motherboard and clocking them at the exact same speeds in order to gain more performance? Right now as I see it I'm losing about 17% performance in several games due to me only having single channel RAM.
It's not whether or not it will count as dual channel. Technically any ram put with another stick in the alternating dimm slots are dual channel, no matter speed (but the motherboard usually sets both to lower speed and looser timings of the two). But whether even the same timing and speed stick will work from a different kit is not a guarantee at all. Just get a two dimm kit.