Extra 4GB of RAM at 2400MHz

[Apple-Seeds]

Hello! I've gotten more into computer hardware stuff, and I realized that I have an older computer I don't use anymore that I got five years ago that I could probably salvage some RAM from. It's just been collecting dust and there's nothing on there worth pulling off, so hey why not? I popped it open and took out the RAM stick, and it's a 4GB stick of RAM at 2400MHz. At the moment I've got one stick of 8GB 2666MHz in the laptop I primarily use. I've considered putting in this old stick and putting it to some use, but I understand that while it'll bring my total RAM up to 12GB, it'll decrease the speed just a little bit.

I guess my question is whether or not the extra 4GB is worth the 266MHz drop. That feels like such a low number that it wouldn't be really noticeable, and having dual channel RAM with an extra 4GB sounds like it would offset that downside, but I'm not enough of an expert to really tell.
 

Thanks!

[Eigenvektor]

Depends on whether you're currently RAM constrained or not. As you said, you'll lose some performance by going from 2666 MHz to 2400 MHz, but you actually gain some performance by getting (partial) dual channel for 8 GB of your 12 GB of your RAM (provided the laptop supports flex mode).

 

~edit: Since you already have the hardware, I'd simply try it and run some benchmarks before/after to see how much of a difference it makes.