Mixing different ram together

[Zompix]

Hi

 

I'm looking to upgrade my family members pc with 2 extra sticks of 4gb ddr3 1600mhz ram, To upgrade to 16gb but I can't find the same ram brand anywhere and was wondering if it would be okay to buy some cheap other branded ddr3 1600mhz ram to stick in there.

 

I heard ddr3 is pretty forgiving with mixing ram brands other than voltage differences but i'm still not sure if I should order a differently branded ddr3 1600mhz kit anybody could elaborate if this would be okay to do ?

[Radium_Angel]

Mixing and matching old ram is fine, just ensure the speeds/CL is as close as possible to the existing stuff

[Hinjima]

2 minutes ago, Zompix said:

Hi

 

I'm looking to upgrade my family members pc with 2 extra sticks of 4gb ddr3 1600mhz ram, To upgrade to 16gb but I can't find the same ram brand anywhere and was wondering if it would be okay to buy some cheap other branded ddr3 1600mhz ram to stick in there.

 

I heard ddr3 is pretty forgiving with mixing ram brands other than voltage differences but i'm still not sure if I should order a differently branded ddr3 1600mhz kit anybody could elaborate if this would be okay to do ?

Get a different brand but with the same speed and timings.  If you get slower RAM, the existing RAM will run at the speed of the slowest RAM.

[goatedpenguin]

Getting RAM at different speeds is fine just note that it will run at the lowest common denominator of all the sticks personally I don't recommend it.

[Zompix]

2 minutes ago, goatedpenguin said:

Getting RAM at different speeds is fine just note that it will run at the lowest common denominator of all the sticks personally I don't recommend it.

Yeah well the issue is he is using an 4th gen haswell cpu and they seem to not like ram above 1.35v and alot of the ram i've found on amazon ect has been listed between 1.35v and 1.5v so i'm not sure if its safe, they are all from unknown brands which kind of seems like a big red flag too me but to be honest i'm not 100% sure

[Zompix]

18 minutes ago, Hinjima said:

Get a different brand but with the same speed and timings.  If you get slower RAM, the existing RAM will run at the speed of the slowest RAM.

https://www.amazon.com/Timetec-PC3L-12800-PC3-12800-Unbuffered-Computer/dp/B0BVH2XVV2?th=1

would something like this work, It's a optiplex 7020mt these seem to be "dual voltage modules"

i'm just going to buy 4x4gb sticks since we don't want to go through the pain of finding 2x4 or mixing ram really

[goatedpenguin]

8 hours ago, Zompix said:

Yeah well the issue is he is using an 4th gen haswell cpu and they seem to not like ram above 1.35v and alot of the ram i've found on amazon ect has been listed between 1.35v and 1.5v so i'm not sure if its safe, they are all from unknown brands which kind of seems like a big red flag too me but to be honest i'm not 100% sure

you can undervolt the RAM but changing RAM voltage, memory clock etc. is really a hit or miss thing especially with RAM compared to other components like the cpu or gpu