RAM COMPATIBILITY QUESTION - CAN I DUAL-CHANNEL??

[kostasmous]

heeey guys!!! i have bought a single stick ram ( crucial ballistix 16gb 3600Mhz (BL16G36C16U4B) ). and i wanna ask if anyone knows if i buy again the EXACT same single stick ram model will i be able to dual channel them?????? my mobo is B550 GAMING EDGE WIFI... my ram is single rank...  --------> BL16G36C16U4B.M8FE

 

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

Yes.

[Nightfear77]

yes if you put them is in the 2nd and 4th slots from the cpu socket

[kostasmous]

1)i just wanna highlight that those are single sticks not a KIT ....

2) msi mobo in site hasnt tested the single rank yet only the dual channel... so im not sure if it is 100% oercent compatible .. if u check https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/MPG-B550-GAMING-EDGE-WIFI#support-cpu u gonna see only the BL16G36C16U4B.M16FE1 aka dual channel is tested... so im in confusion. cuz i m gonna need to spend 90$ dollars for the second single channel ram and if it isnt compatible i will have spend 180 dollars for nothing

[aDoomGuy]

Well if you buy a kit you can RMA it if it doesn't work.

 

If you buy 2x single sticks it should work but you can't RMA usually if they don't work together. For all it's worth it should work but you don't have the same guarantee that it will work compared to a kit. 

[Analog]

8 minutes ago, kostasmous said:

1)i just wanna highlight that those are single sticks not a KIT ....

2) msi mobo in site hasnt tested the single rank yet only the dual channel... so im not sure if it is 100% oercent compatible .. if u check https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/MPG-B550-GAMING-EDGE-WIFI#support-cpu u gonna see only the BL16G36C16U4B.M16FE1 aka dual channel is tested... so im in confusion. cuz i m gonna need to spend 90$ dollars for the second single channel ram and if it isnt compatible i will have spend 180 dollars for nothing

 

You are confusing single rank with dual channel. They mean two different things. 

 

Single channel vs dual channel pertains to the amount of memory sticks you have installed in your board and the actual slots they are in. There is no such thing as  single channel RAM stick.

 

On the other hand single vs dual rank pertains to the number and placement of the actual memory chips on the RAM stick pcb itself. Because of this, having two sticks of RAM in the system doesn't necessarily mean that you are running in "dual rank."

 

For more information check out this video:

 

 

Therefore, if you buy to RAM sticks that have the exact same part number, which for all intends and purposes are the same and you install them in the appropriate dimm slots on the board you will have dual channel enabled. 

 

 

[kostasmous]

18 minutes ago, Analog said:

 

You are confusing single rank with dual channel. They mean two different things. 

 

Single channel vs dual channel pertains to the amount of memory sticks you have installed in your board and the actual slots they are in. There is no such thing as  single channel RAM stick.

 

On the other hand single vs dual rank pertains to the number and placement of the actual memory chips on the RAM stick pcb itself. Because of this, having two sticks of RAM in the system doesn't necessarily mean that you are running in "dual rank."

 

For more information check out this video:

 

 

Therefore, if you buy to RAM sticks that have the exact same part number, which for all intends and purposes are the same and you install them in the appropriate dimm slots on the board you will have dual channel enabled. 

 

 

yeah i know... i mean ive got one crucial ballistix that is single rank and not in a KIT... And im asking if i buy the exact same crucial ballistix single rank ram , will i be able to make them work dual channel ?? AND im asking all these cuz in the MOBO site datasheet it says that it is compatible with the dual rank sticks... but doesnt say anything about the single rank sticks which im having. thats all!!!

 

[Analog]

7 minutes ago, kostasmous said:

yeah i know... i mean ive got one crucial ballistix that is single rank and not in a KIT... And im asking if i buy the exact same crucial ballistix single rank ram , will i be able to make them work dual channel ?? AND im asking all these cuz in the MOBO site datasheet it says that it is compatible with the dual rank sticks... but doesnt say anything about the single rank sticks which im having. thats all!!!

 

 

This clears it up. In this case, the answer to the first question is yes. If you buy the exact same RAM stick (same product number) and have both installed in your board in the appropriate dimm slots then it will work dual channel no problem. Now to the second question of weather the motherboard will support both sticks to run at 3600MHz this I cannot say for sure, because this config is not on the QVL as you said. To sum it up, the memory will run, but it might not be on 3600MHz. 

[kostasmous]

11 minutes ago, Analog said:

 

This clears it up. In this case, the answer to the first question is yes. If you buy the exact same RAM stick (same product number) and have both installed in your board in the appropriate dimm slots then it will work dual channel no problem. Now to the second question of weather the motherboard will support both sticks to run at 3600MHz this I cannot say for sure, because this config is not on the QVL as you said. To sum it up, the memory will run, but it might not be on 3600MHz. 

thanks super a lot... one last thing.. when u say might not reach 3600 u mean there will be no xmp and it will run on 2300-2600?

cuz if this is the case then im gonna need to single channel... could be better

 

[Analog]

5 minutes ago, kostasmous said:

thanks super a lot... one last thing.. when u say might not reach 3600 u mean there will be no xmp and it will run on 2300-2600?

cuz if this is the case then im gonna need to single channel... could be better

 

Single channel is pretty much always worse than running dual channel. There will be XMP, but whether that will work without causing issues is what I can't say. Usually running memory sticks binned for 3600MHz can easily do 3200MHz as well. So worst case scenario you will probably be able to tighten the timings a bit and run 3200MHz if by some chance you can't get the memory to work on 3600MHz.  

[kostasmous]

ok thanks a lot!!!