Need help upgrading my RAM

[DesoxyN]

Hey all,

 

So I decided to add 2 more(maybe 1 depending on the price and availability?) RAM sticks to my current build as I think current 16GB setup started to not be enough for gaming. I have some questions about this but first let me give you the build;

-Intel i7 7700K Kaby Lake

-MSI Z270 GAMING M3

-DDR4 16GB's of RAM (2 x CMK8GX4M1A2400C14)

 

So these RAM's are slotted in Slot 2 and Slot 4. I can't seem to find the same part numbered RAM sticks for a reasonable price in my country. What if I, lets say decided to add these (CORSAIR CMK16GX4M2Z3200C16 VENGEANCE LPX 16GB (2 X 8GB)) sticks on top of the current ones and slotting them in 1 and 3 slots? Would that cause problems? The speed and the latency values doesn't match as we can see. Can I add these all together to achieve 32GB's of RAM? Do you recommend doing it? If not, would getting the same sticks over the current ones be considered as an update? Please help, thanks!

 

[Needfuldoer]

When you have mixed-speed memory, it will all run as fast as the slowest stick you have installed.

 

In your case, the 2400 will go as fast as it can and the 3200 will jog along at 2400.

[Uptivuptiz]

LTT has already made a video on mixing RAM. I recommend you watch it to be fully informed on the matter.  

TL;DR Mixing RAM can go well for you, but the speed is dictated by the slowest modules. So in this case all modules would run at 2400 Mhz. 

A personal recommendation from me is to disable XMP if you experince some weird issues after insalling the mis-matched RAM.

 

[DesoxyN]

12 minutes ago, Needfuldoer said:

When you have mixed-speed memory, it will all run as fast as the slowest stick you have installed.

 

In your case, the 2400 will go as fast as it can and the 3200 will jog along at 2400.

 

7 minutes ago, Uptivuptiz said:

LTT has already made a video on mixing RAM. I recommend you watch it to be fully informed on the matter.  

TL;DR Mixing RAM can go well for you, but the speed is dictated by the slowest modules. So in this case all modules would run at 2400 Mhz. 

A personal recommendation from me is to disable XMP if you experince some weird issues after insalling the mis-matched RAM.

 

Thanks for the answers. I knew the speed would be stuck on 2400 for all the sticks. But thats almost about it about my RAM knowledge  The thing is, the availability on the 2400MHz sticks are very limited in my country. Even if I find what I'm looking for, the 3200MHz sticks are the same price if not cheaper than the 2400MHz ones. I'm seriously thinking on getting 3200+ sticks as I also plan to upgrade my entire build in 1-2 years to use them on the new build. So you 2 can say, I can get for example the given new sticks in the OP while some problems can occur when using them alltogether. Would the mismatching latency values cause problems or they both can find a matching latency value to work together? I'm pretty amateur at this stuff.

[Uptivuptiz]

2 minutes ago, DesoxyN said:

Thanks for the answers. I knew the speed would be stuck on 2400 for all the sticks. But thats almost about it about my RAM knowledge  The thing is, the availability on the 2400MHz sticks are very limited in my country. Even if I find what I'm looking for, the 3200MHz sticks are the same price if not cheaper than the 2400MHz ones. I'm seriously thinking on getting 3200+ sticks as I also plan to upgrade my entire build in 1-2 years to use them on the new build. So you 2 can say, I can get for example the given new sticks in the OP while some problems can occur when using them alltogether. Would the mismatching latency values cause problems or they both can find a matching latency value to work together? I'm pretty amateur at this stuff.

Timings shouldn't be a problem in theory.  Just like speed, the timings are dictated by the slowest value. Again, if you experince issues try disabling XMP as that will make your RAM run at stock speeds and timings which is much more stable. The hit to performance will be very minor as you are running an Intel CPU.

[Chris Pratt]

Gaming shouldn't require more than 16GB of RAM. If you're feeling a pinch, it's probably more so to do with the slowness of the RAM, not the capacity. In other words, you'd probably be better off just replacing the 2400MHz 16GB kit with a 3200MHz kit, rather than adding a 3200MHz 16GB kit for a total of 32GB all running at 2400MHz.

[Needfuldoer]

15 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

Gaming shouldn't require more than 16GB of RAM. If you're feeling a pinch, it's probably more so to do with the slowness of the RAM, not the capacity. In other words, you'd probably be better off just replacing the 2400MHz 16GB kit with a 3200MHz kit, rather than adding a 3200MHz 16GB kit for a total of 32GB all running at 2400MHz.

Try it both ways and see what makes the bigger impact.

[DesoxyN]

37 minutes ago, Chris Pratt said:

Gaming shouldn't require more than 16GB of RAM. If you're feeling a pinch, it's probably more so to do with the slowness of the RAM, not the capacity. In other words, you'd probably be better off just replacing the 2400MHz 16GB kit with a 3200MHz kit, rather than adding a 3200MHz 16GB kit for a total of 32GB all running at 2400MHz.

So faster RAM helps with the utilization you say? While playing Warzone for example, memory hits %90-95 utilization on the task manager. 

[Chris Pratt]

54 minutes ago, DesoxyN said:

So faster RAM helps with the utilization you say? While playing Warzone for example, memory hits %90-95 utilization on the task manager. 

No, but I highly doubt that the game itself is sitting on 16GB. Maybe you have a lot of stuff running in the background at the same time?

[DesoxyN]

12 hours ago, Chris Pratt said:

No, but I highly doubt that the game itself is sitting on 16GB. Maybe you have a lot of stuff running in the background at the same time?

It starts to use 7.5-8 gigs of RAM with %95 utilization after a couple of games. No clue on why its like that while having 16GB installed, up and running. Also I have 1-2 tabs of Google Chrome open on my 2nd monitor. It wasn't giving me hardtimes couple of months back. The system is pretty aged right now and bad optimized updates probably causing this.

 

Also got a new question about the situation as I have 2 choices for the new sticks both being the same price here;

-CMK16GX4M2D3600C18

-CMK16GX4M2Z3200C16

 

Which one would you recommend for my case? I will probably try using the new sticks with themselves and also with the old sticks altogether to see which gives a better result.