Can I have dual channel ram sticks of different speeds but the same company/make?

[CaptainDowns]

For my current system (Ryzen 2600, ASUS B450 plus gaming) I have a single 8gb stick of ballistix tactical tracer 3000MHz RGB ram. I cannot find the same stick available online or in stock nowadays so I'm thinking I do one of two things:

 

• Buy the same stick but 3200mhz (which is available) and just downclock it to 3000mhz (or keep it 3200? I dont know which will work better)
• Wait and pray another will be available online, but considering international imports/exports in South Africa (where im from), I'm unsure they'll ever be available and I fear they'll be discontinued.

Should I just cut my losses and buy a new 3200MHz stick? Is it better to just sell my current one and opt out for an available 16gb dual channel kit?

[TetraSky]

2 minutes ago, CaptainDowns said:

Is it better to just sell my current one and opt out for an available 16gb dual channel kit?

This is always the better solution. Mix matching RAM, while it usually "works", isn't ideal if you want to take full advantage of it.

[Eigenvektor]

It should work, but the memory controller will run both of them at the same (slower) speed

[Robchil]

an aging system, i would buy 2 kits to fill it up, by the next time you want to buy prices are too high 

if anything both rams will run on the slower speed. 

[Dravinian]

20 minutes ago, CaptainDowns said:

For my current system (Ryzen 2600, ASUS B450 plus gaming) I have a single 8gb stick of ballistix tactical tracer 3000MHz RGB ram. I cannot find the same stick available online or in stock nowadays so I'm thinking I do one of two things:

 

• Buy the same stick but 3200mhz (which is available) and just downclock it to 3000mhz (or keep it 3200? I dont know which will work better)
• Wait and pray another will be available online, but considering international imports/exports in South Africa (where im from), I'm unsure they'll ever be available and I fear they'll be discontinued.

Should I just cut my losses and buy a new 3200MHz stick? Is it better to just sell my current one and opt out for an available 16gb dual channel kit?

They should work, but will as mentioned be at 3000 regardless of the second sticks speed.

 

Whether it is better to sell and buy, would depend on how much you could sell for and how much it costs to buy.

 

Obviously, having 16gb of RAM at a faster speed is better, but I think you would likely gain more from the 16gb than an increase of 200mhz.

[Tristerin]

Make sure BIOS is up to date to ensure any potential compatibility issues.

 

Im running (for certain tasks atm) 2x8gb 3600mhz CL18 and 2x8gb 2133mhz CL14 @ 2666mhz CL18 1.2v (all sticks).  100% stable.  I don't see why you would have an issue with downclocking 1 stick to 3000mhz and keeping the 3000mhz stick of CAS Latency across the board

[Eighjan]

25 minutes ago, CaptainDowns said:

Is it better to just sell my current one and opt out for an available 16gb dual channel kit?

This...

[CaptainDowns]

Quote

 

22 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

It should work, but the memory controller will run both of them at the same (slower) speed

So do you mean they'll both be at a lower speed? For instance 2660? Or will they both be at 3000MHz?

[Eigenvektor]

2 minutes ago, CaptainDowns said:

So do you mean they'll both be at a lower speed? For instance 2660? Or will they both be at 3000MHz?

Let me put it another way: They should run at the highest speed both of them support, so 3000 MHz. Meaning the 3200 MHz one will not run at full speed. You could of course attempt to overclock both of them to 3200. My main point was that the CPU's memory controller can't do different speeds for different sticks, it'll use the same for all of them.

 

As others have pointed out, you could run into compatibility issues. This could cause it to default back to the base speed (i.e. 2666 MHz), but in most cases it should work fine.