[SOLVED] RAM compatibility between 2 different 2x8GB kits on a 2nd gen Ryzen system.

eternalabys

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Hey everyone,

Today's question might be quite obvious but I thought to ask either way, I have 1 kit of Patriot Viper Steel 2x8GB 3200MHz CL16 already running in my system, I recently got the option (cousin upgrading from 16GB 2x8GB to 32GB 2x16GB) to throw in an extra kit of a different vendor, and slightly different speed memory. (I believe it's the G.Skill Trident Z 16GB 2x8GB 3400MHz CL16 kit.)

Now, I believe I can adjust the RAM speeds and timings manually so I don't think it'll make much of a difference because I'll make both kits run at 3200Mhz CL16 as I mainly need the capacity upgrade more than the speed upgrade.

Issue is, I'm running on a B450M motherboard and a 3200G, which are notorious for not letting high speed 4x8GB kits to run stably, let alone kits from different vendors.

I'll be able to test for myself soon enough, but I don't have high hopes, I just wanted to ask here to see maybe someone's done something like it or at least something similar, sanity checking and all that.
 
Solution
Okay, so to end this thread off, the answer is yes and no.

Yes, you can get 2 different vendor RAM kits to work, although your mileage may vary, and No, they'll most certainly not work at their rated speeds, at least not on a Zen+ system with a B450 motherboard.

Maybe it would work better if the RAM kits were from the same vendor and model, but again, your mileage will vary.

I got lucky and it works pretty well at 2800MHz CL16-16-16-36, might try to tighten the timings even more, but even this amount is perfectly fine.

Even though this technically hurt my performance, in game my FPS only went down by 5 or so FPS due to running 400Mhz slower than before, all in all, works completely fine and has been stable ever since I set it up.
Hey everyone,

Today's question might be quite obvious but I thought to ask either way, I have 1 kit of Patriot Viper Steel 2x8GB 3200MHz CL16 already running in my system, I recently got the option (cousin upgrading from 16GB 2x8GB to 32GB 2x16GB) to throw in an extra kit of a different vendor, and slightly different speed memory. (I believe it's the G.Skill Trident Z 16GB 2x8GB 3400MHz CL16 kit.)

Now, I believe I can adjust the RAM speeds and timings manually so I don't think it'll make much of a difference because I'll make both kits run at 3200Mhz CL16 as I mainly need the capacity upgrade more than the speed upgrade.

Issue is, I'm running on a B450M motherboard and a 3200G, which are notorious for not letting high speed 4x8GB kits to run stably, let alone kits from different vendors.

I'll be able to test for myself soon enough, but I don't have high hopes, I just wanted to ask here to see maybe someone's done something like it or at least something similar, sanity checking and all that.
I mix memory a lot at my job.
I estimate I have about an 80% success rate.
I think there are a lot of factors that come into play.
Trying it is the only way to know.
 
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eternalabys

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I mix memory a lot at my job.
I estimate I have about an 80% success rate.
I think there are a lot of factors that come into play.
Trying it is the only way to know.

Alright, I'll try once my cousins upgrade kit shows up and he gives me the go ahead. At first I won't try any XMP, just base boot to see if it will even boot with all 4 slots populated and then will try XMP, although I doubt It'll work and I'll have to manually adjust it.
 

eternalabys

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Have each kit in alternating slots, see if they can boot up together, if they can, you can try scaling up to see what can work.

Let us know how it goes. Also, if you can list memory models or specs that can give us a better idea of what you are working with and possibilities.

Will try that, thanks to everyone for the responses, I don't know specifically what kit my cousin is using yet but I can definitely list my current Patriot Viper set:

Model number: PE000620-PVS416G320C6K

I'll include an image of Thaiphoon Burner data which has everything on my current set of RAM:

https://prnt.sc/1dm8r2a
 
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eternalabys

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I got some more info on the G.Skill RAM kit apparently it's a: G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16GB 2x8GB 3466MHz CL16

Model Number: F4-3466C16D-16GTZR

I could probably down clock the MHz and CL timings to match my Patriot Viper set so it wouldn't be that much of an issue, again, I'm mainly trying to get more capacity then speed, as I've tried OC'ing the Viper kit and it wouldn't budge past 3300MHz, even at that it would be unstable.
 

eternalabys

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Alright, so my cousin got his new kit and gave his old one to me, put the G.Skill kit in 1 and 3 RAM slots with the Viper kit in 2 and 4, XMP definitely didn't work, tried adjusting manually to 3200, but as it stands, it can't go anything past 2800, which sucks, but maybe there's still hope of doing it manually, if I can at least get it back to 3200 I won't even try and push for more. Using Thyphoon Burner and Ryzen DRAM Calculator for the manual OC and it's not really working, setting everything on auto and just changing speed to 2800 works fine but if I try to push it to 2866 it OC fails on me.

I'm open to suggestions.
 

eternalabys

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Also, because I use an APU, my iGPU's VRAM is my actual RAM, when I reset my bios I forgot about that for a second, when I went back in and changed it, it stopped working at 2800 and went down to 2666 because I took around 8GB hardware reserve to the iGPU.
 

eternalabys

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Make sure DRAM voltage is set to 1.35V and
Command Rate is set to 2T.

2933mhz probably will be max you can do there with 4 modules.

Can you show screenshots from CPU-Z memory and spd sections?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)


Setting it to 1.35V and CR to 2T let me get back to 2800 while using 8GB for reserve on iGPU.

Here's the CPU-Z screenshot, it's all stock timings and uncore frequency bounces around a bit, that's probably why I can't go further than I am now: http://prnt.sc/1h1wqgb
 

eternalabys

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Then it's possible, your cpu/ram combo simply doesn't go past 2800mhz.
As mentioned before - 2933mhz is probably max achievable there (without risking damaged hardware).
2800mhz is pretty close to that.
Very well could be, it's a bit of a bummer, but increased capacity will certainly help either way, I'll still try and figure out a way to get it higher and if I can I will report back here.

Thank you for your time.
 

eternalabys

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I tried increasing voltage on both DRAM and SOC but it didn't give me any tangible results, but on auto SOC voltages and 1.35V on DRAM, I got the timings down to 16-16-16-36, but nothing much else, either way, this is about as good as I expect it to be, only one other issue I've noticed being stuttering in games while assets were loading in, but once they've loaded fully it calmed down considerably, probably something to do with VRAM allocation being spread amongst the RAM and not on one or two sticks.
 

eternalabys

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Okay, so to end this thread off, the answer is yes and no.

Yes, you can get 2 different vendor RAM kits to work, although your mileage may vary, and No, they'll most certainly not work at their rated speeds, at least not on a Zen+ system with a B450 motherboard.

Maybe it would work better if the RAM kits were from the same vendor and model, but again, your mileage will vary.

I got lucky and it works pretty well at 2800MHz CL16-16-16-36, might try to tighten the timings even more, but even this amount is perfectly fine.

Even though this technically hurt my performance, in game my FPS only went down by 5 or so FPS due to running 400Mhz slower than before, all in all, works completely fine and has been stable ever since I set it up.
 
Solution