Replacing my RAM

[JuiceBew]

I’ve been thinking about upgrading my PC recently and happened to find these RAM cards in my garage. I’ve only recently started trying to actually understand my computer and would like to know what would be my best bet as far as improving my PC. I have 3 of the xms3, and then 2 of each of the other ones shown in the picture. I’ve also included my current PC specs. I’m thinking I just replace the old card with the 2 viper xtreme ones just to be safe but I would also like to know if I could mix and match some of the cards. Also I only have 2 slots on my mother board

[Alpha_Dingo]

You can mixmatch brands and speeds. But be careful and put the lowest speed in the lowest number slot. Not doing this can cause compatibility issues. Also make sure all the cards that you want to use have the right pin count. I dont know much about those cards and so you would probably want to research those first, or wait around long enough and im sure someone would be willing to research it for you.

[LIGISTX]

34 minutes ago, JuiceBew said:

I’ve been thinking about upgrading my PC recently and happened to find these RAM cards in my garage. I’ve only recently started trying to actually understand my computer and would like to know what would be my best bet as far as improving my PC. I have 3 of the xms3, and then 2 of each of the other ones shown in the picture. I’ve also included my current PC specs. I’m thinking I just replace the old card with the 2 viper xtreme ones just to be safe but I would also like to know if I could mix and match some of the cards. Also I only have 2 slots on my mother board

Looks like the vipers are the lowest latency kit you have, so yea go with that.

 

Or, you can mix and match them. If your motherboard can support 4 sticks, use the viper and the Corsair for example. You will get 16 GB (I assume each stick is 4GB..?) and they will all run at the slowest common denominator, so the vipers will slow down a touch. But that latency change is nothing you would notice, while doubling your RAM you likely would, especially going from 8 to 16, that would be a huge change. 

[LIGISTX]

1 minute ago, Alpha_Dingo said:

You can mixmatch brands and speeds. But be careful and put the lowest speed in the lowest number slot. Not doing this can cause compatibility issues. Also make sure all the cards that you want to use have the right pin count. I dont know much about those cards and so you would probably want to research those first, or wait around long enough and im sure someone would be willing to research it for you.

All DDR3 is pinned the same. Also, you don’t want to “put slower sticks in lower number slots”. You just want to match the kits together in the same channel. Which channel doesn’t matter.

 

99.999% or motherboards have channels in every other slot. So say channel A slot 1 is closest to the CPU, the second slot for channel A will be three slots away from the CPU. Put the matches sticks in those slots, then the set of other RAM in 2 and 4. That’s really all you need to do.

 

As long as it’s all DDR3, the mobo *should* be able to figure it out. Not always guaranteed, but most of the time it will.