Using 1 stick of RAM with Msi z270 a-pro

[jbthazard]

I'm building my first PC and i got one stick of 8gb with my msi z270. I know that performance is supposed to be slightly better with a 2x4 set up because of dual channel, but i want to upgrade eventually to have 2x8 and i'm a little tight on cash for now so i went with the cheaper 1x8 option.

i just want to know if i'll still be able to use my mobo despite it being ideally made for dual channel? I just want to make sure my PC will still boot up, and that gaming performance won't be hindered since I'm just sticking to 1080p/60fps for the foreseeable future.

 

[Herc08]

Yes it will still boot up. Is one stick of 8GB cheaper than 4GBx2? If you have the Z270 board, you should also have four slots. You could have got 4GBx2, and then later, got another 4GB x 2 for a total of 16GB.

 

[jbthazard]

Thanks.

I got an ADATA that was on sale that was cheaper than a lot of 2x4s i could find.

Actually now that you bring up the four slots, is 2x8 better than 4x4 for my dual channel mobo? I want 16gbs eventually for the future games that will need more than 8gbs.

 

[jbthazard]

Also, in case it helps, my gpu is Zotac GTX 1070 and cpu is Intel i5-7600k, which should get me playing at max settings at 1080p/60fps, i hope.

EDIT: and i'm going for Samsung SSD/ Western Digital HDD set up

 

[Herc08]

Yes the 1070 should get you up and runing. I have a 1060 and I can max out and get ~55 FPS. In fact I was playing Hitman (2016) on DX12 and was getting around 53-55, but on DX11 I was in the 30s..weird. But it doesn't matter if you have 4x4GB or 8x2, because both sets will run in dual channel regardless. You will not see a decrease in performance, but 8GBx2 is a bit more efficient.

 

[jbthazard]

Thank you very much, my ram came in the mail today and was worried i made a wrong purchase, you got rid of my anxiety for today.