Ask: Using identical RAMs (dual channel) but the only difference is Capacity
32 minutes ago, bakanisan said:It means I'm good for 4GB in Dual channel then? After that it gets throttled?
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: Kind of. It depends alot on your motherboard and how its RAM modules are laid out. Assuming you have a typical motherboard with 4 total ram slots, (2x dual channels), then you should be fine to run in Flex Mode, in which case the 2 sticks will be treated as completely non-identical ram modules. Just make sure you're using Slot#2 and Slot#4.
Your motherboard will check the 2 sticks and run both at the lower frequency, (in this case its the same frequency), and it will run in dual-channel up until the 2gb capacity on both sticks, (aka 4gb total, 2gb per stick), with the last remaining 2gb running unpaired, and therefore losing about half your memory bandwidth.
Another way of thinking about it is like this: You have 6gb total capacity, 4gb capacity is run at full speed, the last 2gb is run at half speed.
If your motherboard doesn't support flex mode, then you may run into issues like instability, all 6gb being run in single-channel, or one of the sticks not being detected whatsoever. (though these are unlikely with a modern motherboard). In this worse case scenario, you can usually overcome the instabilities by changing which slots your 2 ram stacks are plugged into, ie switching the 4gb stick from Slot#4 to Slot#2, but that's going into non-flex channel territory and proprietary bios behaviours which changes on a brand by brand basis.
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now