RAM Question

[DotoreN]

I currently have 2x 2gb 1333mhz ram sticks and 2x 8gb 1600mhz ram sticks.

 

I first noticed that my DRAM Frequency was 666mhz, but my primary ram sticks run at 1600mhz, so it should be 800hz.

 

So my question to you; Does my bios priotize the 2x 8gb sticks over the 2x 2gb (slow) sticks? How can I check this or is this automated?

And how do I get it to run my 2 sticks at 1600mhz ?

[Crunchy Dragon]

You mean Mhz not Hz. Very big difference.

 

Your BIOS will "prioritize" memory sticks based on which slots they're in. Slots A1 and A2 are your primary slots(your slowest memory modules go there, this defaults all memory to that speed). Slots B1 and B2 are your other slots that you put basically whatever in.

 

On modern boards, the BIOS will usually automatically downclock all RAM to match the slowest speed regardless of slot, though.

[DotoreN]

4 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

You mean Mhz not Hz. Very big difference.

 

Your BIOS will "prioritize" memory sticks based on which slots they're in. Slots A1 and A2 are your primary slots(your slowest memory modules go there, this defaults all memory to that speed). Slots B1 and B2 are your other slots that you put basically whatever in.

 

On modern boards, the BIOS will usually automatically downclock all RAM to match the slowest speed regardless of slot, though.

Thanks for your response.

 

I'll check what slots they're in right now. So if my slowest rams are in A1/A2, I should swap them over I guess, but will this solve the issue where they're downclocked or will they still be downclocked to match the slow sticks? Should I just remove the 2x2 sticks or is there some tweaking I can do in the bios?

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, DotoreN said:

I'll check what slots they're in right now. So if my slowest rams are in A1/A2, I should swap them over I guess, but will this solve the issue where they're downclocked or will they still be downclocked to match the slow sticks?

Your system will either automatically downclock them or not boot.

 

You can manually overclock it to 1600 or 1866Mhz if it makes you feel better, I did that with one of my systems a few years back.

[HoneyBadger84]

Stupid question, why do you need the extra 4GB of RAM? It'd be much easier to just run the 2x8GB and take the other kit out, you'll have to manually set the timings & speed otherwise as the board will default to the slower kit's timings. In this instance it's very much not worth leaving the other kit in unless you have a workload that needs that 20GB of RAM instead of 16.

[DotoreN]

23 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Your system will either automatically downclock them or not boot.

 

You can manually overclock it to 1600 or 1866Mhz if it makes you feel better, I did that with one of my systems a few years back.

Apparently I have 2x2 in A1/A2 and 2x8 in B1/B2.

But iirc if I want my mobo to prioritize the 2x8, I need to put them in A1/B1 right?

 

So in my current setup I can't manually set them to 1600 as they'll set my slow sticks to 1600 aswell which they probably can't handle.

 

i'll try to change the sticks, hopefully it's do-able thanks to my huge cooler...

[HoneyBadger84]

20 minutes ago, DotoreN said:

Apparently I have 2x2 in A1/A2 and 2x8 in B1/B2.

But iirc if I want my mobo to prioritize the 2x8, I need to put them in A1/B1 right?

 

So in my current setup I can't manually set them to 1600 as they'll set my slow sticks to 1600 aswell which they probably can't handle.

 

i'll try to change the sticks, hopefully it's do-able thanks to my huge cooler...

Which slots the sticks need to be in to run dual channel should be in your manual. It varies sometimes so I can't tell you for sure. I doubt rearranging the sticks will make a difference. You'll have to try manual settings and it's pretty likely the smaller sticks are going to pull a "AHHHHHH. WHAT IS THAT. STOP PLAYIN'" and not work at the higher speed with timings that tight. 

[DotoreN]

23 minutes ago, HoneyBadger84 said:

Which slots the sticks need to be in to run dual channel should be in your manual. It varies sometimes so I can't tell you for sure. I doubt rearranging the sticks will make a difference. You'll have to try manual settings and it's pretty likely the smaller sticks are going to pull a "AHHHHHH. WHAT IS THAT. STOP PLAYIN'" and not work at the higher speed with timings that tight. 

I just opened my case and I have a noctua-dh14 cooler that completely blocks my 4 sticks, so I can't re-arrange without dismantling the whole cooler xd.

 

Do you think I can just put the dram frequency to 1600 and my 1333mhz sticks don't care too much ?

[Crunchy Dragon]

23 minutes ago, DotoreN said:

I just opened my case and I have a noctua-dh14 cooler that completely blocks my 4 sticks, so I can't re-arrange without dismantling the whole cooler xd.

 

Do you think I can just put the dram frequency to 1600 and my 1333mhz sticks don't care too much ?

You should be able to, I managed to get a stick of DDR3 from 1333 to 1866 without any issues.

[HoneyBadger84]

22 minutes ago, DotoreN said:

I just opened my case and I have a noctua-dh14 cooler that completely blocks my 4 sticks, so I can't re-arrange without dismantling the whole cooler xd.

 

Do you think I can just put the dram frequency to 1600 and my 1333mhz sticks don't care too much ?

You don't have to lift the sticks very far to get them out. Just push the little clamps off then remove one at a time. It will probably be more of a pain getting them back in than out. 

 

Welcome to why I haven't had air cooling since 2009.

[DotoreN]

47 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

You should be able to, I managed to get a stick of DDR3 from 1333 to 1866 without any issues.

 

44 minutes ago, HoneyBadger84 said:

You don't have to lift the sticks very far to get them out. Just push the little clamps off then remove one at a time. It will probably be more of a pain getting them back in than out. 

 

Welcome to why I haven't had air cooling since 2009.

 

Alright thanks, i'll just overclock them to 1600 and leave it at that. The cooler completely blocks the rams, I litterly can't even grab it properly and that's the most outter one.

 

Just a question out of curiosity:

 

Is there even a difference in performance if my computer now always utilizes the 2x2gb sticks instead of the 2x8 first if i put all of them at 1600mhz?

[HoneyBadger84]

Tbh windows will probably use the lion's share of the 2x2GB just to run the OS now, your games will definitely load up the other kit. As an example my windows eats about 2-4GB just sitting there depending on what I have running in the background.

 

I'm not really familiar with how RAM addressing works, so I can't say for sure if it will prioritize one or the other, but overall you should see a much smoother experience with all that additional ram for games and applications to run on.