I just couldn't bring myself to dropping over a grand on a gpu. Went with evga 2080.
Good for you tho
Are More RAM Modules Better for Gaming? 4 x 4GB vs. 2 x 8GB
- Thread starter Steve
- Start date
Good for you tho
Evernessince
Posts: 5,469 +6,158
That really depends. For example, one kit may have better timings. Heck your 2x16 kit might be dual rank, essentially giving it the same advantages and disadvantages of a 4 x 8 kit. You can check the number of ranks in a program like thypoon burner. I wish this kind of information was present on the specifications page.
imdarkbreeze
Posts: 87 +74
Yes, this article is clearly misleading in that it doesn't make clear the fact that DIMM specifications such as timings, frequency/speed and ranks might all play a role.
And as I posted earlier, including fact based links, but was deleted by moderation for saying somebody was an imbecile (Hint, they were, but I get it), IF you are overclocking the CPU or are have any considerations due to being near the ceiling on your thermal specifications, adding two more DIMMs MIGHT be a factor in an increased CPU package temperature.
Clearly this article suggests otherwise, as do some of you, but there are many good reasons for the preference of using a two DIMM configuration vs a four DIMM configuration, especially on a dual channel motherboard. I'll leave it at that since apparently the facts don't outweight the opinions of some people around here.
And as I posted earlier, including fact based links, but was deleted by moderation for saying somebody was an imbecile (Hint, they were, but I get it), IF you are overclocking the CPU or are have any considerations due to being near the ceiling on your thermal specifications, adding two more DIMMs MIGHT be a factor in an increased CPU package temperature.
Clearly this article suggests otherwise, as do some of you, but there are many good reasons for the preference of using a two DIMM configuration vs a four DIMM configuration, especially on a dual channel motherboard. I'll leave it at that since apparently the facts don't outweight the opinions of some people around here.
grumblguts
Posts: 496 +418
What is your timings ?
krizby
Posts: 429 +286
Buildzoid made a clip discussing about this
TL,DR version: if you had X570 motherboard with Ryzen 2, they likely have daisy chain memory layout where 2 DIMM is the safest option. For Intel Z390 mother where the majority of motherboards are T-topology, the safest option is 4 DIMM config. All in all just check the Motherboard QVL before buying high performance Ram.
Now for PC enthusiasts: best option for X570 Ryzen 2 are 2x16GB 3600mhz Ram (running 1:1 ratio with FCLK).
For Intel Z390 just buy the highest rated 4x8GB kit out there, maybe 2x8GB if you want to beat some overclocking records (on very specific motherboard)
TL,DR version: if you had X570 motherboard with Ryzen 2, they likely have daisy chain memory layout where 2 DIMM is the safest option. For Intel Z390 mother where the majority of motherboards are T-topology, the safest option is 4 DIMM config. All in all just check the Motherboard QVL before buying high performance Ram.
Now for PC enthusiasts: best option for X570 Ryzen 2 are 2x16GB 3600mhz Ram (running 1:1 ratio with FCLK).
For Intel Z390 just buy the highest rated 4x8GB kit out there, maybe 2x8GB if you want to beat some overclocking records (on very specific motherboard)
D
DelJo63
My experiences with 4 dimms is awefull, especially with faster memory modules
I have had every brand of the most expensive motherboard models ( intel cpu) and wanted to get at least over 32 Gb memory in my system with higher clockspeeds. All the major brands failed to run 4 dimms at the advertised xmp profiles. No matter if it was asus, gigabyte, msi or asrock they all failed to run at the xmp profiles. Even the relentless help from Corsair did not help one bit.
I still call Corsair the company with the best service ever, non of these motherboard makers get from me a positive impression. They all are selling crappy products so basically I feel screwed because there is no competition. All these factories sell crap and do give support to the stores door.
In other words non I have bought by now almost every so called best of the best of these crappy factories en ended up contant having problems with several items.
I really wish one real good brand would appear like tyan which never had such problems like I detected on the crap products from the great 4. Yes I am very demanding that is absolute true.
But I can not believe that I am the only one needing lots of nvme slots, memory, sata3 ports and more.
So back to the problems all the 4 dimm sets failed to run at the advertised speeds, hell not even the xmp profiles where possible no matter if it was ddr3 or ddr4 memory.
I bought from almost every factory sets of memory with advertised speeds example I bought a set for my old i7 board 32 GB ddr3 at 1866 Mhz all boards showed in their compat. lists that they would run for sure. Well dream on all of them ended in 1333 Mhz every time no matter what brand mobo I used.
Then I bought the newer models with ddr4 and was amazed to get the same result all of them supposed to be able to run 64 Gb or even 128 Gb memory well dream on non of them worked the high speeds as advertised they all crashed or booted up yes you guessed it at 2133 Mhz .....
So I started testing them all with the help from some major memory factories including Corsair.
But after I had tested 15 different motherboards even Corsair gave up with so many problems.
most do run at 2133 Mhz but non of the higher speed sets did what you expect they should do.
When I choose in the motherboard to run the memory at xmp profile you expect it to start and not come back dead or booting at 2133.
When you go back at very low amount of ram like 4 x 2 Gb or 4 x 4 Gb it works but when you go higher simply forget about having succes pretty soon. especially if you want 64 GB+ then fail is common.
If I look at all my friends I see that most only use 4 to 8 Gb of memory and some of these use 2 Gb modules siply because these can be clocked much higher than the larger ones.
These guys are overclockers who seek the limits, so they contant said to me higher overclocks are much easier on the small sized modules. So when I told my issues they confirmed that it would be very hard to get it working. They said the factories love to sell products with fantasy speeds which in most cases will not work. And before one starts to babble about QVL lists all of them where on these lists, some still are on these QVL but I assure you they will fail. The only ones which probably work well are the small amount sets. So QVL lists will not help much either, and worse is that most factories will simply stop responding when you do not accept that they advertised at high xmp speeds and it this not run. They simple asnwer its overclocking which we DO NOT SUPPORT.....
sounds familiar right the same answer I got from the motherboard vendors .... and then SILENCE
I have had every brand of the most expensive motherboard models ( intel cpu) and wanted to get at least over 32 Gb memory in my system with higher clockspeeds. All the major brands failed to run 4 dimms at the advertised xmp profiles. No matter if it was asus, gigabyte, msi or asrock they all failed to run at the xmp profiles. Even the relentless help from Corsair did not help one bit.
I still call Corsair the company with the best service ever, non of these motherboard makers get from me a positive impression. They all are selling crappy products so basically I feel screwed because there is no competition. All these factories sell crap and do give support to the stores door.
In other words non I have bought by now almost every so called best of the best of these crappy factories en ended up contant having problems with several items.
I really wish one real good brand would appear like tyan which never had such problems like I detected on the crap products from the great 4. Yes I am very demanding that is absolute true.
But I can not believe that I am the only one needing lots of nvme slots, memory, sata3 ports and more.
So back to the problems all the 4 dimm sets failed to run at the advertised speeds, hell not even the xmp profiles where possible no matter if it was ddr3 or ddr4 memory.
I bought from almost every factory sets of memory with advertised speeds example I bought a set for my old i7 board 32 GB ddr3 at 1866 Mhz all boards showed in their compat. lists that they would run for sure. Well dream on all of them ended in 1333 Mhz every time no matter what brand mobo I used.
Then I bought the newer models with ddr4 and was amazed to get the same result all of them supposed to be able to run 64 Gb or even 128 Gb memory well dream on non of them worked the high speeds as advertised they all crashed or booted up yes you guessed it at 2133 Mhz .....
So I started testing them all with the help from some major memory factories including Corsair.
But after I had tested 15 different motherboards even Corsair gave up with so many problems.
most do run at 2133 Mhz but non of the higher speed sets did what you expect they should do.
When I choose in the motherboard to run the memory at xmp profile you expect it to start and not come back dead or booting at 2133.
When you go back at very low amount of ram like 4 x 2 Gb or 4 x 4 Gb it works but when you go higher simply forget about having succes pretty soon. especially if you want 64 GB+ then fail is common.
If I look at all my friends I see that most only use 4 to 8 Gb of memory and some of these use 2 Gb modules siply because these can be clocked much higher than the larger ones.
These guys are overclockers who seek the limits, so they contant said to me higher overclocks are much easier on the small sized modules. So when I told my issues they confirmed that it would be very hard to get it working. They said the factories love to sell products with fantasy speeds which in most cases will not work. And before one starts to babble about QVL lists all of them where on these lists, some still are on these QVL but I assure you they will fail. The only ones which probably work well are the small amount sets. So QVL lists will not help much either, and worse is that most factories will simply stop responding when you do not accept that they advertised at high xmp speeds and it this not run. They simple asnwer its overclocking which we DO NOT SUPPORT.....
sounds familiar right the same answer I got from the motherboard vendors .... and then SILENCE
Your wrong smaller memory modules do run better and are still recommended by factories themself as the best for overclocking,
Most overclockers I know prefer 1 or 2 slot dim configs maximum, several of them are on the top list with small size memory modules.
You hardly ever see one overclocking with 16 Gb of memory ever.
Fully agree with you on this matter, I only see huge drops in performance if you using massive modded games like skyrim SE where you can put 8K graphics mods on it, which makes a 2080Ti start dropping frames insane fast or even stall.
I have my Skyrim SE setup that way several times and was hoping that the current power gpu where able to run it smooth but at 4K you clearly see the reality you have to lower much of the graphic settings to get it running smooth again. Hell even on 1440p it sometimes drops alot in performance when I steer my character at the most intense graphical places on the maps.
Sure with the increasing capabilities of the current gpus its most of the time running ok, but when I crank up to 4K you instant see the difference again. Things often stall or need time to load before showing. And that only because the graphics files are made in 8K res. So not even having to show them in real 8K at all.
krizby
Posts: 429 +286
Yeah sure, Samsung B die is only available in 8GB modules and right now they have the highest freq there is. You are talking ddr3 era buddy.
Indeed you allways need exact same modules and speeds and size to get it working without problems. Going for large size memory modules is another ball game and different modules is a abolute no go if you want high speed.
If you use for instance a laptop or nuc with fixed speeds and do not expect super performance you can easily out in different sizes and will work ok but do not expect speed.
I myself use a i7 nuc with 12 Gb ram 1 s0dimm 4 Gb and 1 s0dimm 8 Gb and works well for this machine. But I admit it can not oc at all so it does not matter what you push into them as long the modules have similar cl speeds it will work
If you use for instance a laptop or nuc with fixed speeds and do not expect super performance you can easily out in different sizes and will work ok but do not expect speed.
I myself use a i7 nuc with 12 Gb ram 1 s0dimm 4 Gb and 1 s0dimm 8 Gb and works well for this machine. But I admit it can not oc at all so it does not matter what you push into them as long the modules have similar cl speeds it will work
I actually try not to forget updating my database with these pc problems.
But because I am not paid for these things its only for myself, but often when I am somewhere to fix problems others pretty quickly seem to know I am by one close and jump in to get their problems quickly fixed for free as well.
So often filling reports becomes a problem, when many people are around babbling about anything.
But because I am not paid for these things its only for myself, but often when I am somewhere to fix problems others pretty quickly seem to know I am by one close and jump in to get their problems quickly fixed for free as well.
So often filling reports becomes a problem, when many people are around babbling about anything.
Ryan Barrett
Posts: 56 +14
They also did not account for daisy chained memory. You get worse performance the farther you are from the controller.
Alot has todo with timings and latency, but there are so many variables to consider its really pretty hefty stuff.
I have seen special bios versions which could set almost every possible parameter which can be set on memory, this was a factory overclocker at work.
This stuff is far beyond what most of us ever will get our hands on.
Anyway it seems there are some brands going to release access to those extra settings which you normally never see and often have no clue what they do.
I have seen special bios versions which could set almost every possible parameter which can be set on memory, this was a factory overclocker at work.
This stuff is far beyond what most of us ever will get our hands on.
Anyway it seems there are some brands going to release access to those extra settings which you normally never see and often have no clue what they do.
It's hilarious how many baddies doubt this article. I had a flat 10% improvement in synthetic memory benchmarks when I added 2x1r8GB ECC sticks (so obviously not the fastest stuff around) to my system (same as the original two). Performance in Photoshop pretty much had a flat increase.
I doubt it matters much for games though.
,,|,, overclockers and non-ecc memers, stuff is janky as hell. ECC should be standard (you don't need chipkill ecc on home pcs though). Stability is god, and 1 month stable in stress testing is just 1 month of wasted power with no guarantee of 100.0000000000000% stability..
I doubt it matters much for games though.
,,|,, overclockers and non-ecc memers, stuff is janky as hell. ECC should be standard (you don't need chipkill ecc on home pcs though). Stability is god, and 1 month stable in stress testing is just 1 month of wasted power with no guarantee of 100.0000000000000% stability..
Danny101
Posts: 2,035 +842
If ECC can reduce the frustrating chasing of errors with not much nominal cost increase, then that would be my vote. Stability without errors is a type of speed on it's own.
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