[SOLVED] what is better for performance , 2sticks of RAM or 4Sticks

[ziad ahmed]

I was wondering what's better for performance , installing 2sticks of RAM or 4Sticks ?
EX : 2x16GB or 4x8GB
same (Freq, Volt, timings)
my question is about both systems (AMD & Intel)

 

[kerberos_20]

2x single sided sticks will overclock higer
2x dual sided sticks or 4x single or dual sided sticks will have better performance (compared to 2x single sided on same frequency)

 

[punkncat]

Two are preferable, all other things being equal (ish). Most motherboard will have higher performance out of a dual channel of matched, fast RAM at an optimal speed for the platform, and will typically OC/XMP better as well. This has to do with many factors.

 

[hotaru.hino]

If we use this sample size of one, then four sticks is slightly better: https://www.techspot.com/article/1971-more-ram-modules-better-for-gaming/

If I were to speculate, four sticks are better than two in a dual channel system because you can interleave memory operations. That is, while one set of memory is transferring something, you can sneak in some commands for the other set of memory to start doing something. This doesn't increase how much bandwidth you can push, but it might help reduce latency because the other set of RAM can immediate start using the data channel rather than wait for a command, do the command, and then send or receive stuff.

 

[geofelt]

Unless you are talking about a server, modern motherboards will run in dual channel mode regardless of 2 sticks vs. 4.
There may be some benchmarks to detect differences in performance, but you, as a user will not see any difference.

Since ram must be matched, it costs more to find 4 matched sticks vs. two.

 

[sizzling]

4 sticks are likely to have a lower maximum frequency/timings. However if you can actually run them at the same frequency/timing then they should have a tiny performance lead but not enough to worry about.

 

[kerberos_20]

If we use this sample size of one, then four sticks is slightly better: https://www.techspot.com/article/1971-more-ram-modules-better-for-gaming/

that article tested 2x single rank modules vs 4x single rank, at end of article it says dual rank wasnt explorer in that article

If I were to speculate, four sticks are better than two in a dual channel system because you can interleave memory operations. That is, while one set of memory is transferring something, you can sneak in some commands for the other set of memory to start doing something. This doesn't increase how much bandwidth you can push, but it might help reduce latency because the other set of RAM can immediate start using the data channel rather than wait for a command, do the command, and then send or receive stuff.

yup its memory interleaving, it wont do anything to FPS if GPU run at 100%...few fps gain on CPU bound games

 

[Karadjgne]

Depends on the cpu and the sticks themselves.

For instance if you have a Zen3 Ryzen then 2x16 is best, because Zen3 has a preference for dual rank ram. You can use 4x8 and it's almost the same, the MC will treat the 2x single rank sticks like a single dual rank stick in dual channel with the other pair. Moving down to 2x8, you run into mostly single rank sticks which don't perform as well, even with identical speeds and timings.

And then there's prior Zen releases where single rank outperforms and is more stable than dual rank dimms and using 4x dimms is either problematic or impossible to get xmp/docp timings and speeds.

And none of that applies to Intel, who doesn't seem to care about rank, putting all its chips on timings and speeds, where 3200/14 is intrinsically identical to 3600/16.

Real world differences are mostly irrelevant, there's not enough difference to enable a human to quantify it one way or another. A benchmark is required to show the results.