Ram? 4x4 or 2x8 AMD

[TR0J4N]

Okay so after doing quite a bit of reading, the only definitive stuff I found was from before sandy bridge so super old... Any way I am slowly upgrading my pc to run star citizen and currently have 2 x 4GB Crucial ballistix tactical 1866MHz ram in an asrock 970 pro3 r2.0. For now the going amount is about 12 GBs for SC and so am looking at more ram.  My mobo will run two different pairs of ram in dual channel mode. I tested an 'old set' of gskill aries 1600 MHz ram (since given to my brother for his pc) with my ballistix under clocked to 1600MHz. Also I have no intention of running more than 16 GB of ram in this machine ever. I'll wait for DDR4 to come down. so my question is should I get another pair of 4GB ballitix for a total of 4 dims or buy two new 8GB sticks of 1600/1866 MHz ram and run only the two new dimms?

[soaringchicken]

go for the 4 dims, quad channel should be faster then dual if I am correct.

[AyoItzYu]

I would go for the 2 sticks of 8 incase you feel the need to upgrade in the future. 

[miyabwah]

go for the 4 dims, quad channel should be faster then dual if I am correct.

Quad Channel is only supported on LGA2011... I'd say get the 2x8 for more room for expansion..

[The Crazed Child]

Go 2x8, quad channel puts a lot of stress on the memory controller. Also you'll see no difference in FPS or rendering times, they both perform exactly the same.

[D2ultima]

for Dual Channel memory you should stick with 2 sticks as best you can. It's a little faster than 4 sticks (though you probably won't notice). Not sure about it putting strain on the memory controller though; I was of the opinion that it only happened that way with mismatched sticks.

[soaringchicken]

Well, the more you know

[Cubit481]

Go 2x8, quad channel puts a lot of stress on the memory controller. Also you'll see no difference in FPS or rendering times, they both perform exactly the same.

4x4 will not be quad channel, it will be dual channel only...quad channel is only supported by lga 2011 cpus...

[Linus_torvalds]

go for the 4 dims, quad channel should be faster then dual if I am correct.

That's not quad channel. quad channel is only on 2011 socket!

[The Crazed Child]

4x4 will not be quad channel, it will be dual channel only...quad channel is only supported by lga 2011 cpus...

I wasn't thinking when I was typing that post, I assumed that 4 DIMMs was quad channel. I remember now, 4 slots need to be the exact same colour for it to be quad channel.

[TR0J4N]

so i shouldn't notice any difference between 2x8 and 4x4? 

[ddbtkd456]

Quad Channel is only supported on LGA2011... I'd say get the 2x8 for more room for expansion..

 

Should have been the first answer right here....quad channel is only supported on LGA2011....therefore 2x8 is better for future expanibility as well as the maximum performance you will get from your pc. If you can spend it tho get a CASL of 7 or 8 tho...as it has slightly faster return times. Also you will not notice any performance difference using 4x4, and it might actually decrease the performance since the motherboard isn't optimized for it.