Is it better to get a ram kit? or individual sticks?

[eBiz]

I'm putting a shopping cart together for my new X99 build and am tempted to just get a 16gb (2x8gb) to start out and get more later, ideally I want 32gb total but would like to wait till the prices drop a little more.

 

Is there a benefit to getting a ram kit (4x8gb)? or is it the same just buying one 8gb stick at a time?

 

 

[Tagiau]

Kit's are usually cheaper. Except for when you go with corsair ram, then they double the price and add some extra. but currently you would be okay(?) with getting single sticks. 

[mr.skyrim_pc]

Its the same as just buying buying individual sticks. Go ahead and just get 2x8gb for now.

[ImBleu]

Kits are generally cheaper, you pay less when you buy in bulk.

[flibberdipper]

Kits tend to be cheaper.

[WoodenMarker]

Kits are just sticks that have been tested and guaranteed to work together at the advertised settings. There's nothing special about them. 

This belongs in the CPU, Motherboards, and Memory section. I'm moving the thread.

Please post in the correct sub-forum in the future.

[Aniallation]

I'm putting a shopping cart together for my new X99 build and am tempted to just get a 16gb (2x8gb) to start out and get more later, ideally I want 32gb total but would like to wait till the prices drop a little more.

 

Is there a benefit to getting a ram kit (4x8gb)? or is it the same just buying one 8gb stick at a time?

Kits tend to be cheaper and are designed to work together more seamlessly, without one stick dragging the rest down due to different clock speeds or timings.

 

edit: holy fuck

[Ren]

Actually I was looking into this myself (not hardcore, so prepare for some inaccuracies).

I was noticing that I could get, say, a 2x8GB CL11 kit of 2133Mhz RAM for the same GB:$ ratio as a 4x8GB of CL11 2400Mhz. Now, if I actually needed that 2400Mhz or a lower CL at 2133Mhz, I could probably tweak either RAM kit and get it even if I got two 2x8GB kits. But if I bought the 4x8GB kit, I'd have faster RAM off the bat and would have to do less work to get my system stable and working at an efficient level.

It's probably less applicable with DDR4, especially right now, but to me it seems there is a degree of binning involved with kits. You can easily see this with the tens of product codes for G.Skill kits. Some are 100% identical timings (maybe one number different) and same frequency but a kit might be 1.65v vs 1.5 on the other. Voltage doesn't matter too much until you look into overclocking/adjusting RAM speed or which CPU you're dealing with.

In any case, yeah I do believe there can be a difference. But that's in the grand scheme of things, not when DDR4 is fresh and not really even outstanding. I think by the time the topic of binning/whatever would become relevant (which could take years longer than this), you'd be looking down the barrel of much better DDR4 kits than what are available today. As an example, instead of being stuck with CL16 2800mhz or something you could get CL12 clocked @ 3000mhz. Or just much better speeds at the same, low voltages. ...Or lower voltage at the same speeds. There's a million possibilities.

[Jerakl]

Its the same as just buying buying individual sticks. Go ahead and just get 2x8gb for now.

Got any good non DLC mods for skyrim? I MUST HAVE MORE. Oh, and mods to make it looks better?

 

Msg me. 

 

(You better have some ideas considering you have skyrim in your name!)

[eBiz]

Ok cool thanks guys, I just thought that they might be optimized to work together, loks like that true to a degree. Also your saying that you can get different brands of ram sticks and they will work together? I was under the impression that they had to be the same brand/frequency/