Let us assume there are 4 slots for RAM in a given motherboard A, B, C and D. Slot A and C form a dual-channel and B and D form another dual channel. (They are of same colour physically.)
Now I have 2 similar RAM sticks of 3000 MHz running in dual channel. I am buying 2 similar RAM sticks of 3200 MHz (only available option for me now)
What would be the best configuration to get most speed in games from these?
p - 2 sticks of 8 GB (3000 MHz)
q - 2 sticks of 16 GB in proper dual channel configuration
r - 2 sticks of 8 GB (3000 MHz) and 2 sticks of 16 GB (3200 MHz) inserted in the 2 dual channel configurations respectively.
Option “q” for sure.
When you populate all four slot it is harder to hit high speeds at low latencies in the first place, and with not-identical sticks it’s harder also. I don’t think you can hit even the lower of the values, so 3000 MT/s, with that mix installed.
Even if you could, running only the two fast sticks at 3200 MT/s will help you more for the games. I don’t think you’ll find a situation where a game is not happy with 32 GB of RAM in the system, and could derive any benefit from the additional 16 GB on the older sticks.
Also you neglected to mention any latencies, but they are important to hit too, not just high clock rate. The stick with the highest latencies will be the bottleneck for your memory controller.
(For my comment I’m assuming you mean MT/s not MHz, because everyone keeps treating them as the same, even though they are different by a factor of two. If you actually mean your RAM ran at 3000 MHz so 6000 MT/s then I’m impressed you got that with non-identical sticks, and think it will be even more impossible to hit 6000 MT/s let alone 6400 MT/s with the new ones in the mix)
Check my profile for the only post I’ve made, I ended up choosing (and still currently running) r, but keep in mind that every ram stick has to be going the same speed, so you would need to downclock the 2x16 ram to 3000 mhz to match the 2x8
You also have to use the same timings, which may or may not work out.
Which means you may end up having to downclock both sets until you find a stable set of matching settings that runs on both.
If you’re running a bunch of virtual machines or LLMs or something that needs a lot of RAM(video production/editing), it could be beneficial to run all 4 simultaneously if they’ll play nice with each other.
That said, it’ll certainly be slower than running the faster of the two kits in proper dual-channel mode for gaming. If you’re a novice or get easily fed up, I’d go with q. Be sure to activate XMP.
2 sticks will always be faster than 4 sticks on consumer platforms.
I don’t believe “r” is an option, mixing makes and speeds. That said 2x 16 would be better than 2x 8 regardless of speed.
Mismatched capacities do work, all sticks just have to be run using matching clocks and timings, which may or may not be possible. Using the XMP profile of one set may not work with the other, and manually figuring out settings that work with both is not straightforward.
More capacity is not automatically better. As long as your have enough capacity, more speed will net you more performance.
Unless one needs additional capacity, one should go for a faster set over a larger one.
