16Gb: 2x8 or 4x4 ? Is there a difference ?

[Emptiness]

Hey guys,

 

I currently have 8Gb but I'd like to upgrade to 16Gb pretty soon and I wanted to know if there was a difference between buying the same 2x4Gb sticks and making it 4x4Gb sticks and 2x8Gb sticks. 

 

Is one solution better than the other, do they perform the same way ?

 

 

Thank you for your answers.

[ZetZet]

There is a difference, it's too small to care about. Just do whatever is cheaper.

[Atmos]

on a dual channel motherboard they will perform identically, but 4x4 will limit your ability to upgrade ram later down the road if you want to.

 

On a quad channel motherboard like is needed for intels extreme edition, then the 4x4 it will perform marginally better.

[SageOfSpice]

Essentially the same.

I think the only thing is that it can be a bit of an issue overclocking when you're using two different sets of ram, even if they are the same model.

[don_svetlio]

If 4x4 are running in quad-channel then you'd get better bandwidth which, depending on the application, could show either a decent improvement or no improvement at all

[PRTI]

Depends on the use

[porina]

Assuming dual channel system, 4x4GB will guarantee you have two ranks per channel which can help with some ram intensive compute tasks. 8GB modules may be single or dual rank depending on specific module, so could be disadvantaged. Trend is moving towards single rank at 8GB.

 

Possible negative to 4 modules is it can be less stable at very high speeds compared to 2 modules, but unless you're a heavy overclocker or buy silly fast modules, this isn't likely to be a problem.

 

Personally as there are already 2x4, I'd just get another 2x4 to add.

[Mark77]

2x8 will generally have a slight power consumption advantage.  Plus it'll have higher resale value and will help you out if you ever need to expand things. 

 

 

[Emptiness]

Alright, thanks a lot for your answers. I think I'll get 2x8 Gb and sell the 2x4 I have right now.

[Mark77]

Try to get DDR3L spec'ed RAM if you have a choice over DDR3. 

[Emptiness]

5 minutes ago, Mark77 said:

Try to get DDR3L spec'ed RAM if you have a choice over DDR3. 

Nah I was already with DDR4 and will stick to DDR4

[Mark77]

Ah DDR4..  yeah okay, nevermind then. 

[Emptiness]

Thank you though ^^

[Matias_Chambers]

Depends on the CPU and motherboard. If they support quad channel then go with 4x4. If they only support dual channel go with 2x8. As far as I know quad channel is only supported by X99 as of right now. And quad channel gives you double the bandwith. 

[Emptiness]

Just now, Matias_Chambers said:

Depends on the CPU and motherboard. If they support quad channel then go with 4x4. If they only support dual channel go with 2x8. As far as I know quad channel is only supported by X99 as of right now. And quad channel gives you double the bandwith. 

Yeah I believe mine is only Dual