is it fine to get a single 8gb piece of ram x 4 or do I really need to buy a 4 kit?

[foxbill86]

I will give to my GF my current Kingston 2x16 2666mhz to her because she needs it in AI enhancement of pics and videos and she will be my personal editor. And I want to buy a 4, 8gb of ram so that I can populate all of my slot on my B550M/5700X3D. I don't want to upgrade to a 64gb because I am super fine with 32gb as of now. 

But I have seen posts that it should be a kit for it to be working properly, or is that fine? just buy 4 identical ram but not in a kit?

 

 

I like this ripjaws

[filpo]

2 minutes ago, foxbill86 said:

just buy 4 identical ram but not in a kit?

that's also fine. Even mixing ram would be fine but the speed would run at the lowest stick in the bunch

So yes, you can. But may I ask why? How much is the kit? And what about 2x16gb? (it's normally better for stability)

3 minutes ago, foxbill86 said:

so that I can populate all of my slot on my B550M/5700X3D.

populating the slots won't help if the pc is more unstable

which country are you in?

[foxbill86]

3 minutes ago, filpo said:

that's also fine. Even mixing ram would be fine but the speed would run at the lowest stick in the bunch

So yes, you can. But may I ask why? How much is the kit? And what about 2x16gb? (it's normally better for stability)

populating the slots won't help if the pc is more unstable

which country are you in?

philippines. So I just buy, another 2 sticks? 

[podkall]

2x16GB is ~50$ in US

 

PCPartPicker Part List

Memory: Silicon Power GAMING 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($53.95 @ Amazon)
Total: $53.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-16 13:06 EDT-0400

[filpo]

3 minutes ago, foxbill86 said:

philippines. So I just buy, another 2 sticks? 

yes, that would be best for stability and it'll perform the same as 4. You definitely CAN populate all the slots but 2x16 is best for stability on AM4. How much is 2x16gb?

[mariushm]

You should always fill ram in pairs , you need at least dual channel otherwise you lose performance.

 

There's only 2 channels on B550 / socket AM4 boards, with 4 sticks you're still gonna have Dual Channel.

 

8 GB sticks will most likely be Single Rank these days, so with 4 sticks you're gonna have 2 channels , 1 rank so you don't get the most performance.

 

2 16 GB sticks will be 2 channels, 2 ranks ( most, let's say >75%)  16 GB sticks are dual ranks) so you'll get more performance with 2 ranks.

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

Buying individual sticks is fine only for oem bare pcbs since you can specify the part number and get the exact same rank config and ic every single time, so m378a2k43db1 which is a dual rank (double sided) 16gb stick based on samsung 8gbit d die or hma82gu6djr8n which is another dual rank 16gb stick but based on hynix 8gbit djr, so guaranteed compatibility and overclockability (atleast for more consistent ics)

 

If you wanna buy xmp buy in kits and avoid mix matching, usually works fine even with xmp but sometimes xmp wont work cause ics not playing nice and there are probably instances where it wont even post or be unstable at jedec but id assume thats pretty rare

 

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

8 GB sticks will most likely be Single Rank these days, so with 4 sticks you're gonna have 2 channels , 1 rank so you don't get the most performance.

 

2 16 GB sticks will be 2 channels, 2 ranks ( most, let's say >75%)  16 GB sticks are dual ranks) so you'll get more performance with 2 ranks.

Both of these are dual rank just that 4 stick will be more annoying to clock even at low freq (<4000) except for t topology boards like pre 500 series asrock boards, better off with 2 stick anyways

 

Also 16gb sticks are mostly single rank nowadays cause 16gbit ics so youll see better performance with a 4 stick config if you are buying xmp

 

 

If you actually care about ram performance you wouldnt be wasting your time with xmp and youd buy some jedec sticks that are actually good like those aformentioned 16gb oem bare pcbs and run at 3800-4000 or if your board can clock quad stick theres m378a1g43eb1/db1 (4gbit e/d die, former is preffered) and these will blow any xmp sticks out of the water as tuned will always crush xmp

 

Jusr that xmp gets you 80% of the way there and is adequate + much more convenient as its just 1 click so i would usually reccomend buying xmp sticks for most ppl aside from specific situations where jedec bare pcb are easy to obtain and noticably cheaper than xmp or you want upgradability with guaranteed compatibility or even the occasional person looking for max ram performance

[mariushm]

You keep doing these replies ... get it through your head, not everybody cares about overclocking... stop recommending things from an overclocking point of view.  Recommend something based  on default (as you purchase) performance and specs.

 

Nothing in the original post hints at him being willing to overclock 3200 Mhz sticks to 4000 Mhz or anything of that sort.

 

21 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Both of these are dual rank just that 4 stick will be more annoying to clock even at low freq (<4000) except for t topology boards like pre 500 series asrock boards, better off with 2 stick anyways

You don't know if he cares about overclocking or not. He only said about video editing, working on "AI enhancement of pics and videos", so maybe she/he prefers stability over minor increases in performance.

 

At 3200 or 3600 Mhz, majority of b550 motherboards will work very well with 4 sticks.  Still, not a good idea in 2024 to use single rank 8 GB sticks, and if you don't know what to look for, there's a good chance you'd get single rank sticks and you'd simply be leaving some performance unused. It would still work fine, but it's not the best you could do.

24 minutes ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Also 16gb sticks are mostly single rank nowadays cause 16gbit ics so youll see better performance with a 4 stick config if you are buying xmp

 

No it's not a given. Yes, there's 16 gbit ICs but those would still pack a premium... and there's lots of 16 gbit dies with flaws that are sold as  8 gbit and there's binning of chips in various categories, so you can still get 16 GB sticks and be fairly sure they're dual rank.

It's enough to look at QVL lists of various motherboards to find plenty of models tested that are dual rank...

[Somerandomtechyboi]

11 hours ago, mariushm said:

You keep doing these replies ... get it through your head, not everybody cares about overclocking... stop recommending things from an overclocking point of view.  Recommend something based  on default (as you purchase) performance and specs

 

12 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

Jusr that xmp gets you 80% of the way there and is adequate + much more convenient as its just 1 click so i would usually reccomend buying xmp sticks for most ppl aside from specific situations where jedec bare pcb are easy to obtain and noticably cheaper than xmp or you want upgradability with guaranteed compatibility or even the occasional person looking for max ram performance

^^^

Besides its easy to ram oc anyways at low freq so im just giving some extra info just in case

 

11 hours ago, mariushm said:

No it's not a given. Yes, there's 16 gbit ICs but those would still pack a premium... and there's lots of 16 gbit dies with flaws that are sold as  8 gbit and there's binning of chips in various categories, so you can still get 16 GB sticks and be fairly sure they're dual rank.

It's enough to look at QVL lists of various motherboards to find plenty of models tested that are dual rank...

same logic used to apply to 8gb sticks but 8gb sticks are now single rank and hsve been for quite awhile so eventually thatd spill over into 16gb sticks especially now that ddr4 is eol

 

Though i guess its pretty random anyways if you are dealing with a generic 3200 or 3600 bin where literally anything will be used

 

11 hours ago, mariushm said:

At 3200 or 3600 Mhz, majority of b550 motherboards will work very well with 4 sticks.  Still, not a good idea in 2024 to use single rank 8 GB sticks, and if you don't know what to look for, there's a good chance you'd get single rank sticks and you'd simply be leaving some performance unused. It would still work fine, but it's not the best you could do.

Right b550 is quite overbuilt compared to the older boards even if theyre daisychain, bet even 3800-4000 would probably work fine too

 

And the best you can do is tuning, no amount of money you dump into a fancy xmp bin will be able to beat tuned sticks, so imo when buying xmp just dont even think about anything else and buy a generic 3200c16 or 3600c18 bin with the capacity you want be it 16gb or 128gb and be done with it, performance will be 80% of the way there and itll be adequate compared to running slow jedec and nuking cpu performance, xmp is just for adequate performance but convenience above all (slot sticks in, enable xmp, no stresstests no nothing just go) and it should always work, if it doesnt then rma the sticks cause theyre defective garbage or you bought a bin meant for tuning (>4000 micron/hynix bins)

 

Xmp is just more convenient all around from the buying process to the 1 click set and forget, ive bought a myriad of jedec ddr3 sticks based off ocability and yeah it definitely took awhile to find sellers that had them especially less common stuff like samsung gdie or psc, not to mention having to stabilize them but that part shouldnt be hard at low freq and there will usually be oc profiles online you can reference or straight up plug into your system. With xmp you just search for a kit with your desired capacity at 3200c16 or 3600c18 bin, sort by lowest, and done, then when you put them into your system just enable xmp with 1 click and done with no need for stresstests or anything

 

Only times ill bash xmp is when someones looking for max performance and is serious about it, or you can get jedec sticks for significantly cheaper than xmp

[mariushm]

So just make a f*@ing poll here on the forums and ask how many people just plug the sticks and set the frequency to 3200 or 3600  / enable XMP and how many actually go further and tune memory parameters. Then realize LTT forums are actually not even representative of the majority of computer users, because a lot of users here are more technical than most people who buy pre-made computers or build their computers for the first time or just want to upgrade an old system.  Maybe you'll wake up to reality. 

 

Give advice for the majority of people , assume people don't want to spend hours tweaking memory, because they don't care about overclocking. 

 

Even among the people that are experienced, don't assume they do it. I have a lot of knowledge, I know how to overclock, I just can't be bothered to waste hours tuning ram only to have to retune it half a year later due to aging, or to have to wonder why random resets or crashes in games happen and lose data or whatever.

 

I only mentioned about single rank / dual rank and single channel / dual channel because these are automated things, no user interaction, it's just potential extra performance GUARANTEED by using memory sticks and hardware as designed.  

 

To make an analogy, it's like recommending winter tires instead of all terrain/season tires during winter - all terrain/season (single rank) would work just fine, but you may get a slightly better performance for no extra effort by going with winter tires (dual rank).  Your overclocking advice is like telling the guy to buy autumn tires and to manually cut grooves in the tire in a specific way to get winter performance, to inflate at specific pressure, and some other stupid tweaks.  Not everyone cares enough or wants to mess around. 

[foxbill86]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

So just make a f*@ing poll here on the forums and ask how many people just plug the sticks and set the frequency to 3200 or 3600  / enable XMP and how many actually go further and tune memory parameters. Then realize LTT forums are actually not even representative of the majority of computer users, because a lot of users here are more technical than most people who buy pre-made computers or build their computers for the first time or just want to upgrade an old system.  Maybe you'll wake up to reality. 

 

Give advice for the majority of people , assume people don't want to spend hours tweaking memory, because they don't care about overclocking. 

 

Even among the people that are experienced, don't assume they do it. I have a lot of knowledge, I know how to overclock, I just can't be bothered to waste hours tuning ram only to have to retune it half a year later due to aging, or to have to wonder why random resets or crashes in games happen and lose data or whatever.

 

I only mentioned about single rank / dual rank and single channel / dual channel because these are automated things, no user interaction, it's just potential extra performance GUARANTEED by using memory sticks and hardware as designed.  

 

To make an analogy, it's like recommending winter tires instead of all terrain/season tires during winter - all terrain/season (single rank) would work just fine, but you may get a slightly better performance for no extra effort by going with winter tires (dual rank).  Your overclocking advice is like telling the guy to buy autumn tires and to manually cut grooves in the tire in a specific way to get winter performance, to inflate at specific pressure, and some other stupid tweaks.  Not everyone cares enough or wants to mess around. 

Yeah. You are right. I was even confused than ever. I just asked is going a 4 slot 32gb, 4x8 is good and I was overloaded with information. I mean, I need to read somerandomtechyboi's comment because I don't know what's the content of the comment is and I was overloaded with overclocking. But somerandomtechyboi dont take this as a bad thing but, yeah shit was confusing.

 

But mariushm, since it is okay to populate 4x8 with no worries like all season/terrain tires in a winter. Then I'll just go with it? from a 2x16 2666 to a 4x8 3200 for my setup, my girl is gonna get her 16x2. I just want it to populated cuz its good looking?? hehe sorry aesthetics wise

[mariushm]

28 minutes ago, foxbill86 said:

Yeah. You are right. I was even confused than ever. I just asked is going a 4 slot 32gb, 4x8 is good and I was overloaded with information. I mean, I need to read somerandomtechyboi's comment because I don't know what's the content of the comment is and I was overloaded with overclocking. But somerandomtechyboi dont take this as a bad thing but, yeah shit was confusing.

 

But mariushm, since it is okay to populate 4x8 with no worries like all season/terrain tires in a winter. Then I'll just go with it? from a 2x16 2666 to a 4x8 3200 for my setup, my girl is gonna get her 16x2. I just want it to populated cuz its good looking?? hehe sorry aesthetics wise

In your case, it would be overall better to stay with 2 x 16 GB sticks,  either 3600 Mhz CL16 ... CL 18 (if it's higher than CL19, it's not worth it)  or 3200 Mhz, ideally CL16.  A pair of ram sticks running at 3600 Mhz CL18 will behave about the same as 3200 Mhz CL16, you wouldn't feel a difference in most applications.  Ryzen likes high ram frequencies, so 3200 Mhz is the minimum you should get.

 

There are tiny jumps in overall performance going from 2666 to 2833 to 3000 to 3200 and above 3200, it's much smaller performance increase. 

 

16 GB sticks will also have a better resale value, should you chose to sell your whole system at some point in the future.

 

If you want 4 sticks for aesthetics, it's also fine, but be aware you may leave a tiny bit of potential performance off the table because of the single rank versus dual rank issue I mentioned.