3 sticks of ram

[Ohdeerz]

Hey , I need help bad. I am curious if I could rock 3 sticks of ram. I currently only have 1 stick of 8gb ddr4 ram. I’m looking to purchase more. Maybe 16 more gigs . Is that a thing. Please help. Could I have 24 gigs of ram, and if so which dim  slots. Thanks 

[Glenwing]

Yes, you can do that. Doesn't matter which slots.

[Fasauceome]

If you get 3 you have to run single channel, but if you get 2 (or 4) you can run dual channel by putting dimms into the color coordinated slots on your motherboard.

[191x7]

Having 3 sticks would probably disable Dual Chanel so I'd recommend either having 2 or 4 modules.

Do you need more than 16GB of RAM?

[Ohdeerz]

So could I just get a second stick of ram, the exact same model number and everything making it dual channel? 

[SidM]

Why would you need 24 gb of ram, you will never require more than 16gb for gaming. Only professional work requires that much ram. Just buy another 8gb stick and run in dual channel

[Ohdeerz]

17 hours ago, SidM said:

Why would you need 24 gb of ram, you will never require more than 16gb for gaming. Only professional work requires that much ram. Just buy another 8gb stick and run in dual channel

So should I get the same exact model number and then put it two slots away. And it will go from single channel to dual channel? 

 

17 hours ago, 191x7 said:

Having 3 sticks would probably disable Dual Chanel so I'd recommend either having 2 or 4 modules.

Do you need more than 16GB of RAM?

Could I get same model number ram and just make it dual channel and put it two slots away or is that not how that works . 

[SidM]

1 minute ago, Ohdeerz said:

So should I get the same exact model number and then put it two slots away. And it will go from single channel to dual channel? 

No only leave one slot in between, refer ur mobo manual to check in which slots

[Ohdeerz]

Just now, SidM said:

No only leave one slot in between, refer ur mobo manual to check in which slots

That’s what I meant by 2 slots away sorry, so it will switch over to dual channel automatically?

[Glenwing]

10 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

If you get 3 you have to run single channel

 

9 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

Having 3 sticks would probably disable Dual Chanel so I'd recommend either having 2 or 4 modules.

Source?

[SidM]

17 hours ago, Glenwing said:

Source?

Im pretty sure that these guys are right. For three way dual channel, you need two slots with 8gb and a third slot with 16gb, this way the pc thinks its on dual channel. But im pretty sure that at the same time installing 3 8gb modules automatically sets it to single channel. I could be wrong tho

 

17 hours ago, Ohdeerz said:

That’s what I meant by 2 slots away sorry, so it will switch over to dual channel automatically?

ya, just make sure that all your ram is detected in ur bios etc.

[SidM]

13 minutes ago, CUDAcores89 said:

Your profile picture makes me question the validity of this advice. 

 

I'm not saying it's wrong, but it certainly doesn't inspire confidence. 

I know I am correct. For even demanding games one will almost never need more than 16gb, 24 GB ram is used for video editing etc. About the profile pic, I've got that one or twice before, I just prefer that pic, but in all seriousness, i would never give wrong advice

 

Edit:Changed 'never' to 'almost never' as stormseeker pointed out.

[Stormseeker9]

17 minutes ago, SidM said:

Why would you need 24 gb of ram, you will never require more than 16gb for gaming. Only professional work requires that much ram. Just buy another 8gb stick and run in dual channel

Bollocks mate. It really depends on what game, if you’re modding it, loading assets etc.

 

 

[SidM]

1 minute ago, Stormseeker9 said:

Bollocks mate. It really depends on what game, if you’re modding it, loading assets etc.

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, CUDAcores89 said:

Your profile picture makes me question the validity of this advice. 

 

I'm not saying it's wrong, but it certainly doesn't inspire confidence. 

https://www.pcgamer.com/how-much-ram-do-you-really-need-for-gaming/

from pc gamer.com-We consider 16GB to be a nice sweet spot for a solid gaming system. It should be more than enough to run your games and multitask as needed. You'll also want at least 16GB if livestreaming is a priority for you. The ability to run and stream a game on one monitor while responding to chat questions, playing music, and doing whatever else in another is definitely the kind of task list that would benefit from an extra bit of RAM headroom.

The question gets a bit tougher as you go even higher. Is 32GB overkill? In general, yes. The only real reason an average user would need 32GB is for future proofing. 

As far as just simply gaming goes, 16GB is plenty

[Stormseeker9]

4 minutes ago, SidM said:

 

https://www.pcgamer.com/how-much-ram-do-you-really-need-for-gaming/

from pc gamer.com-We consider 16GB to be a nice sweet spot for a solid gaming system. It should be more than enough to run your games and multitask as needed. You'll also want at least 16GB if livestreaming is a priority for you. The ability to run and stream a game on one monitor while responding to chat questions, playing music, and doing whatever else in another is definitely the kind of task list that would benefit from an extra bit of RAM headroom.

The question gets a bit tougher as you go even higher. Is 32GB overkill? In general, yes. The only real reason an average user would need 32GB is for future proofing. 

As far as just simply gaming goes, 16GB is plenty

@SidM couldn’t give a flying fuck what pc gamer says. 

 

I personally run out of ram and Vram when playing cities skylines. It eats around 20-22GB ram and 11GB vram. 

 

Edit: read what you wrote. ‘never’ - that is the part that isn’t true in your statement. Simple. 

[Glenwing]

21 minutes ago, SidM said:

Im pretty sure that these guys are right. For three way dual channel, you need two slots with 8gb and a third slot with 16gb, this way the pc thinks its on dual channel. But im pretty sure that at the same time installing 3 8gb modules automatically sets it to single channel. I could be wrong tho

That doesn't answer my question though

[191x7]

26 minutes ago, Glenwing said:

Source?

 

Some 17-18 years of using PC-s, 5 university years and some years working in the field. I was there before they invented dual channel. I've seen different capacity modules work in dual channel, but it always required two, four, six or eight modules. Right, there are boards that feature 8 RAM slots...

Are you, perhaps, looking for a written source, some webpage or book?

[Glenwing]

Just now, 191x7 said:

Some 17-18 years of using PC-s, 5 university years and some years working in the field. I was there before they invented dual channel. I've seen different capacity modules work in dual channel, but it always required two, four, six or eight modules. Right, there are boards that feature 8 RAM slots...

Are you, perhaps, looking for a written source, some webpage or book?

No, I was just curious where people get information from My system runs 3 sticks in dual channel mode just fine

 

[191x7]

1 minute ago, Glenwing said:

No, I was just curious where people get information from My system runs 3 sticks in dual channel mode just fine

 

Are you sure it's not 2x4GB + 2x8GB?

[Glenwing]

Just now, 191x7 said:

Are you sure it's not 2x4GB + 2x8GB?

Pretty sure, it's right next to me, and I can see inside it, 3x8 GB

[191x7]

6 minutes ago, Glenwing said:

Pretty sure, it's right next to me, and I can see inside it, 3x8 GB

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/pros-cons-of-using-3-sticks-of-ram-on-a-dual-channel-motherboard.1769908/

 

It must be running two sticks in dual channel and the third in single. Interesting.

 

Edit: wow, I learned something new today. FLEX mode in dual channel was introduced not that long ago, allows for 3, 5, 7 sticks to run in dual channel.

[Glenwing]

Just now, 191x7 said:

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/pros-cons-of-using-3-sticks-of-ram-on-a-dual-channel-motherboard.1769908/

 

It must be running two sticks in dual channel and the third in single. Interesting.

That would be triple channel

[191x7]

14 minutes ago, Glenwing said:

That would be triple channel

Actually not. They aren't combined in your case. Tripple channel would combine 3 or 6 modules.

[Glenwing]

10 minutes ago, 191x7 said:

Actually not. They aren't combined in your case. Tripple channel would combine 3 or 6 modules.

AFAIK, the system is either accessing 2 sticks at the same time (dual channel), or it's only accessing 1 at a time (single channel). They're mutually exclusive, it doesn't really make sense to say 2 sticks are in dual channel and 1 is in single channel. The CPU has 2 memory controllers, with 2 slots each. One controller has 2 sticks plugged into it, the other has 1, if both banks are used at the same time then it's dual channel, if it's only 1 at a time then it's single channel.

 

Regardless, my system gives the exact same results with 3 sticks as it does with 4 sticks in memory bandwidth benchmarks, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

(EDIT: After some reading it sounds like the system would switch between operating in dual channel and single channel mode depending on which part of the memory is being accessed. Would be interesting to test if this is true or not  I'll have to think of a way to test it.)