How do I know if ram is compatable?

[mAAns]

I am going to upgrade from a stick of 8 gig ram to two sticks. I am looking for annother stick. How do I know if a memory stick is compatable with the one I have? The one I have now is the "Corsair Vengeance LPX Black DDR4 2666MHz 8GB". Do I need to buy the same one or can I match with different brands and so on?

 

Also do you pay a lot of money for the lights if you buy a set of rgb ram. Is a pair of ram with rgb for 80 dollars worse than a pair for 60 dollars without?

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1, its always better to get 2 new sticks, unless you can get the exact same one from the same revision.

2, you could match different brands, but they may not function in dual channel, and my not run at 2666mhz together.

3  IT depends on the kit. The memory will always be "fine" because there are only a few nand flash makers. But for that price range, the rgb will be most of the cost, like vengance lpx vs vengance rgb.

[mariushm]

Get one that's 2666 Mhz OR BETTER and same voltage. 

If you put two sticks of different frequencies, the motherboard will run both at the frequency both sticks support. So if you install a 3000 or 3200 or 3600 mhz stick, it will run at 2666 Mhz because the other stick can only do 2666 Mhz.

 

If the stick you have needs 1.2v to run,  you may find out some 3200 Mhz or 3600 Mhz need 1.35v to work, but at lower frequencies like 2666 mhz, such sticks will run at 1.2v so it will be safe to buy.

 

[mAAns]

3 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Get one that's 2666 Mhz OR BETTER and same voltage. 

If you put two sticks of different frequencies, the motherboard will run both at the frequency both sticks support. So if you install a 3000 or 3200 or 3600 mhz stick, it will run at 2666 Mhz because the other stick can only do 2666 Mhz.

 

If the stick you have needs 1.2v to run,  you may find out some 3200 Mhz or 3600 Mhz need 1.35v to work, but at lower frequencies like 2666 mhz, such sticks will run at 1.2v so it will be safe to buy.

 

would you not recomend getting two new sticks with a higher voltage like 3200 Mhz?

[mAAns]

7 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

1, its always better to get 2 new sticks, unless you can get the exact same one from the same revision.

2, you could match different brands, but they may not function in dual channel, and my not run at 2666mhz together.

3  IT depends on the kit. The memory will always be "fine" because there are only a few nand flash makers. But for that price range, the rgb will be most of the cost, like vengance lpx vs vengance rgb.

I can get the exact same that I already have. I think that is what I will do since I only need a bit more power

[mariushm]

4 minutes ago, mAAns said:

would you not recomend getting two new sticks with a higher voltage like 3200 Mhz?

It depends on your budget and depends on what you have.

If you have an Intel cpu,  they're not that sensitive to frequency, so using high frequency sticks won't give you much performance boost, so it's not worth spending money.

If it's Ryzen, for first gen you're fine with 3000 or 3200 Mhz, for second gen you're fine with 3200 or 3600, the third gen really benefits from 3600 Mhz ... but at least 3200 is suggested ... jump from 3200 to 3600 will only give you something like less than 1% boost in performance compared to 5-10% boost from 2666 to 3200.

 

Two sticks is more expensive than just a stick,  so unless you can reuse that 2666 stick to something else or you can sell it, buying a single stick can be a good choice.

 

[mAAns]

3 minutes ago, mariushm said:

It depends on your budget and depends on what you have.

If you have an Intel cpu,  they're not that sensitive to frequency, so using high frequency sticks won't give you much performance boost, so it's not worth spending money.

If it's Ryzen, for first gen you're fine with 3000 or 3200 Mhz, for second gen you're fine with 3200 or 3600, the third gen really benefits from 3600 Mhz ... but at least 3200 is suggested ... jump from 3200 to 3600 will only give you something like less than 1% boost in performance compared to 5-10% boost from 2666 to 3200.

 

Two sticks is more expensive than just a stick,  so unless you can reuse that 2666 stick to something else or you can sell it, buying a single stick can be a good choice.

 

I have a ryzen 5 1600. I think I will buy another one of the one I have, since I dont use my pc for anything other than gaming and youtube

 

[mAAns]

4 minutes ago, mariushm said:

It depends on your budget and depends on what you have.

If you have an Intel cpu,  they're not that sensitive to frequency, so using high frequency sticks won't give you much performance boost, so it's not worth spending money.

If it's Ryzen, for first gen you're fine with 3000 or 3200 Mhz, for second gen you're fine with 3200 or 3600, the third gen really benefits from 3600 Mhz ... but at least 3200 is suggested ... jump from 3200 to 3600 will only give you something like less than 1% boost in performance compared to 5-10% boost from 2666 to 3200.

 

Two sticks is more expensive than just a stick,  so unless you can reuse that 2666 stick to something else or you can sell it, buying a single stick can be a good choice.

 

 

15 minutes ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

1, its always better to get 2 new sticks, unless you can get the exact same one from the same revision.

2, you could match different brands, but they may not function in dual channel, and my not run at 2666mhz together.

3  IT depends on the kit. The memory will always be "fine" because there are only a few nand flash makers. But for that price range, the rgb will be most of the cost, like vengance lpx vs vengance rgb.

When I install the new ram. Do I just pop them in next to the other (with one space) and then start my pc or do I have to make the pc understand that I have messed with its parts?

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 minute ago, mAAns said:

 

When I install the new ram. Do I just pop them in next to the other (with one space) and then start my pc or do I have to make the pc understand that I have messed with its parts?

Sometimes you have to repair windows, but thats rare iirc.

[mAAns]

1 minute ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

Sometimes you have to repair windows, but thats rare iirc.

repair? what does that mean??

 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

2 minutes ago, mAAns said:

repair? what does that mean??

 

You just need to create a bootable USB, boot and click repair my PC.

[mariushm]

No, that's bullshit. You would never have to repair windows just for installing a ram stick.

 

If your motherboard has 2 memory slots, then install in the empty slot.

If the motherboard has 4 memory slots, you typically have to leave an empty slot between the ram sticks to get the sticks working in dual channel configurations.  SOME motherboards will refuse to boot or show a warning on the screen if you install the sticks in the wrong configuration.

The motherboard manual should tell you what's the optimal arrangement. 

On the majority of motherboards, the best is to :

* if using one stick only, install stick in slot that's furthest away from the cpu socket

* if using two sticks, install 1 stick on the furthest away from cpu socket, then leave one empty slot, then install 2nd stick.

 

// In very rare cases, Windows may consider adding ram as a "significant hardware change" and require you to activate windows again. That's all.  You should never get a "repair" request for something that doesn't involve the hard drive, storage, whatever.

 

edit: also, in some cases, the BIOS may put both sticks on a default 2133 Mhz or 2400 Mhz. You would have to go in bios and enable XMP / DOCP (whatever is called on AMD) and select Auto or manually set 2666 Mhz or whatever the frequency both sticks support.

[mAAns]

On 1/7/2021 at 10:15 PM, mariushm said:

It depends on your budget and depends on what you have.

If you have an Intel cpu,  they're not that sensitive to frequency, so using high frequency sticks won't give you much performance boost, so it's not worth spending money.

If it's Ryzen, for first gen you're fine with 3000 or 3200 Mhz, for second gen you're fine with 3200 or 3600, the third gen really benefits from 3600 Mhz ... but at least 3200 is suggested ... jump from 3200 to 3600 will only give you something like less than 1% boost in performance compared to 5-10% boost from 2666 to 3200.

 

Two sticks is more expensive than just a stick,  so unless you can reuse that 2666 stick to something else or you can sell it, buying a single stick can be a good choice.

 

what gen is a ryzen 5 1600?

[mariushm]

18 minutes ago, mAAns said:

what gen is a ryzen 5 1600?

It's Zen 1st generation. With newer motherboards that still support Zen 1st generation (because a lot of motherboards dropped support when adding support for 2nd and 3rd generation), you should be able to manage 3200 Mhz easily. You can buy sticks at 3600 Mhz and just use them at 3200 Mhz, if the motherboard doesn't handle 3600 Mhz.