3 sticks of ram

[Dtech11]

Hi guys,

I have a spare stick of DDR3 1600mHz dual channel ram lying around unused. I was wondering if I could use it in my current machine:

AMD FX-6350 @ 3.9 GHZ 

8gb dual channel 1600mhz ddr3 from crucial (two sticks)

Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 6.0 

Palit 750ti 2gb

 

I would like to use the spare 4gb because it cost about £20 and I don't want to waste it.

The issue is that when I was reading about ram from other websites, It said sometimes it can be a bad idea to mix different brands (Since the spare is Kingston ValueRam, and my other sticks are Crucial).Apparently its also bad to have dual channel and then one seperate stick (btw the exact same type, the only difference is the brand)

Thanks for reading 

 

p.s if this is the completely wrong area, my bad i have only just joined

 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Put it in and try. Worst thing that can happen (realistically) is that it doesn't work, so you take it out and just don't use it. 

Mixing different kits (not even brands), even if they're the exact same specs isn't really advised, just because they're not certain to work together. 

[spellmanuk]

i dont see why it wouldn't work as long as you have your matching ram in the matching colour slots and your spare one in the slot in-between it should work just check it out and see worst case  is that it doesn't and you just take it out.

 

just like everything exercise caution and patience and you should be fine 

[DHelios]

As Oshino Shinobu stated, you can just install the extra module and see what happens. Either it works, or it doesn't. As long as you don't do anything strange, it should not cause any permanent damage if it doesn't work.

 

That answers wether or not you can install the extra module. That just leaves wether you should.

 

AlexTheRose pointed out that it might make your system run in single-channel mode. Here's what that comes down to:

 

You are currently using two identical sticks of RAM in two matched slots on your mainboard. This allows the memory controller to access the memory in dual-channel mode. Being able to communicate with two modules at once means that the available bandwidth between your CPU and your RAM is a lot wider. If your programs are reliant on higher memory bandwidth, this is a nice speed boost. This technology also generally requires the same memory to be installed in the two channels.

 

Adding a third module means that one memory channel has 4GB, the other has 8GB. Whilst it is possible for some motherboards to respond to this by making the first 8GB nice and dual-channel fast and the last 4GB to be single-channel 'slow', most motherboards will simply switch off dual-channel mode and run in single-channel mode. If you are not reliant on the speed of your memory but rather need that extra 4GB for its sheer capacity, you may actually be better off with 12GB of single-channel RAM.

 

To figure out how your mainboard handles this, the easiest way is to, again, just install the module and see what happens. After that, you can determine which is the better choice for you: 8GB of 'fast' memory, or 12GB of 'slow' memory.

[Dtech11]

Thanks guys - I have decided from the feedback to just leave the ram for a rainy day