Can I mix and match ram?

[Drew L]

Hi, ltt forum users, I have an 8gb 2666 stick and a 16gb 2400, is it worth putting them together, or just sticking with the 16 gb stick?

[RONOTHAN##]

If you have them, it's worth giving it a try. It shouldn't hurt your performance. Worth that will happen is that your system won't boot, but the odds of that happening are slim to none. 

[FeIIex]

You can mix the two sticks together, though the 8gb stick will also run at 2400mhz.

[Drew L]

15 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

If you have them, it's worth giving it a try. It shouldn't hurt your performance. Worth that will happen is that your system won't boot, but the odds of that happening are slim to none. 

Thanks so much

[Drew L]

12 minutes ago, FeIIex said:

You can mix the two sticks together, though the 8gb stick will also run at 2400mhz.

Thanks so much

[EphraimK]

Check this out:

https://www.onecomputerguy.com/can-you-mix-ram-brands#:~:text=Hence%2C it is best to use the same,3GB RAM sticks in order to optimize performance.

[Geneslaw]

In my experience, this type of RAM mixing usually works just fine. There is a chance of it not working though, but in my experience it usually does. It's not ideal though, and I do recommend getting matching sticks if you can. But hey, if you just have a stick lying around anyway, you can try.

 

Your faster stick will run at the speed of the slowest one, and dual channel will be weird. Your memory controller might even run the first 8GB of that 16GB module in dual channel mode (or at least, simulate dual channel mode), which would be nice if you get it to actually do so.

 

Do make sure your modules are designed to run at the same voltage though. This will easily be your biggest potential issue. You don't want a stick that is specced for 1.35V to run at 1.2V, which will most likely make it refuse to cooperate altogether. Even worse would be putting a higher voltage on a module that isn't designed for higher voltages, that might completely break the module forever. Even if a module can tolerate a range of voltages, this might not be idea. I've mixed different voltages on DDR3 before. Now this is different from DDR4 of course, which is what you're using, and I don't know if DDR4 has some features to make mixing RAM that's specced for different voltages easier. However, when I did it, it was tricky to get it working. My lower module could operate at both 1.35V and 1.5V according to the manual, while the other module only tolerated 1.5V. My motherboard would strongly prefer to operate both on 1.35V, causing the 1.5V module to refuse working. I had to do a weird RAM dance, pulling modules in and out and switching them around, to get the motherboard to operate the modules at 1.5V. Once I got the motherboard to do that, it worked well.

 

Mixing different speeds or different capacities is something I've done a lot by now. It always worked for me. Mixing different voltages is also something I've done, and while I've gotten that to work too, DON'T do it.