Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: caldera on May 31, 2015, 04:33:42 PM
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My rig has 2 sticks of 4gb memory. Would there be any benefit (or problems) to running another 4gb stick? Four won't fit, due to the cpu fan blocking one slot.
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Make sure it is the same speed as the othe 2 or you will run into problem, but other than that no problems.
LawnDart
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Replace the fan. Fans are cheap.
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Make sure it is the same speed as the othe 2 or you will run into problem, but other than that no problems.
LawnDart
Yep, same brand and specs. Corsair Vengeance 4gb. Thanks.
Replace the fan. Fans are cheap.
The memory sticks have tall heat sinks that combined with the fan, partially block the one slot. If I replace the fan, then it will cost the price of a new fan and presumably a second extra memory stick - with no guarantee that it will fit with the new fan.
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I would measure the height of the memory and then shop for a new cooler. Otherwise, after you get this configured as two DIMMs in dual channel and one DIMM in single channel you are going to want the 4-7% system performance back. It could be that initially you will see the extra memory as more beneficial than the 4-7%, but eventually that will wear off and you will be wanting more power. That's just how computers work.
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A corsair H80i would be a better spend, imo.
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More memory is a good upgrade. 12 is better than 8. As for the fan, if you don't have cooling problems go smaller.
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If you install 2x2Gb sticks together with a single 4Gb stick your motherboard will drop out of dual channel mode. This will hurt your ram performance.
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If you install 2x2Gb sticks together with a single 4Gb stick your motherboard will drop out of dual channel mode. This will hurt your ram performance.
The motherboard manuals I've read tell otherwise. For what I've learned from them the most important thing seems to be to have the same amount on both sides. That's why they color code the slots. LawnDart's advice of having the same speed sticks makes sense, too.
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It's hit or miss. I think most of the Z87 and above MBs will allow dual channel to work with single channel, but there will still be a slight performance hit.
Of course, if the cost is going to be high anyway (replacing the cooler and buying more RAM), then another option would be to just buy bigger modules and use the original two channels. I would aim for 16GB myself. The other thing to consider is that it is usually easier to get a MB to run stable with only two channels in use, anyway. Especially, stability can be affected if you are filling the channels out with the maximum memory size supported. In that case you would want to stick to two channels.
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caldera situation is why I purchased the Corsair Vengeance Low profile heatsink (4) x 4 GB dims when I built my last Intel system, I had already ran into the High Heat sink problem 6 months earlier when I first built the AMD system back in 2011.....
one thing about that Corsair Vengance Ram PC12800 1600 MHz DDR3 240 pin
the ram I have purchased ( a total of 20 separate 4 GB Dimms, every dang one of them has loaded up at the stock setting of running PC10666 1333 MHz, and if you click the XMP profiles, then you can bump them to the advertised PC12800 1600 MHZ rating claim......
one would think that would be considered false advertisement on Corsair's part......... heck a Corsair Rep has even posted with replies several times on Newegg in the reviews, telling people who have complained, to go into the BIOS and either manually bump up the clock settings or use the XMP Profile ( if the MB's BIOS supports XMP profiles )
my last 2 Ram purchases have been Crucial Ballistx and Mushkin, both brands the same PC12800 1600 MHz DDR3 rating, and they loaded at their advertised speed / rating.....
wonder how many others here on the boards has seen the same thing from Corsair Memory, the particular Vengeance system memory in question.....
btw, to fix my problem on the high heat shield on my AMD build , I modified the heighth of the heat sink...... something I would not advise other people to do, if you are not a tinsmith/sheet metal mech, etc.....
TC
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other suggestion would be to buy 2 more sticks with more than 4 gb each. then try to sell the ones you have now.
semp