Will EXACTLY same RAM sticks bought seperately work in dual channel?

[Deepan[India]]

Hello PC masters I am having kinda strange question! Currently I have HyperX 4GB DDR4 2133 MHz RAM installed in my KabyLake system. If I buy EXACT same RAM one more, will I be able to run them in dual channel?

**Links for convenience: 

                  1) The one I currently have and the one I want to buy are exactly same and that is: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAD7H5XC0383&cm_re=4gb_2133-_-9SIAD7H5XC0383-_-Product

                 Product number as on current package: HX421C14FB/4

                 More details: 4GB DDR4 - 2133 CL 14 288 - Pin UDIMM

 

*Been messing with computers since last 5-6 years but it's really a strange question I am facing right now. And this forum has helped me a lot in the past, hence.... flex your muscle PC masters! Peace from India!

[Orangeator]

Yes, and they will sing in harmony.

[flibberdipper]

1 minute ago, Orangeator said:

Yes, and they will sing in harmony.

*perfect harmony

[Deepan[India]]

Are you sure?  Am I able to make my question clear to all? Or at least to you?!  

[ARikozuM]

Yes, very seldom does RAM not work. 

[Deepan[India]]

OMG! But some websites say that 'the ones who're ready to work together are packed together and NEVER ever is sold separately'!

[Deepan[India]]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

Yes, very seldom does RAM not work. 

I mean to work in dual channel & to be able to achieve 8 GB @ 2133 Mhz with all dual channel characteristics.  if no problem persist/s, then I'll order 3 more & make it a 4*4 GB @ 2133 set.  

[WereCat]

Just now, Deepan[India] said:

OMG! But some websites say that 'the ones who're ready to work together are packed together and NEVER ever is sold separately'!

With high speed RAM the XMP profiles may be finicky and 2x8GB 3200MHz kit will work while the same RAM sold separately may have instability issues... not really an issue in your case.

[Deepan[India]]

Ok!   then should I place an order ? I am at 2133 MHz btw mind you.

[Deepan[India]]

Should I make it 4x4 GB @ 2133 MHz kit right now?  Just say 'yes' and i'll place an order XD!

[Glenwing]

10 minutes ago, Deepan[India] said:

OMG! But some websites say that 'the ones who're ready to work together are packed together and NEVER ever is sold separately'!

Whoever says that has never even tried using different sticks to see if it would work or not. My computer at this very moment has four Samsung DDR3 1600 4 GB sticks and four Corsair DDR3 1333 2 GB sticks in quad channel right now (set to the same speed of course). I have never once yet seen RAM that didn't work together no matter how different they were.

[Deepan[India]]

OMG RAM God! Are you serious?!  'X' platform for sure but how come you use 4x1600 and 4x1333 in dual channel?! Those would be in quad channel I guess!  Sorry if I'm wrong, kinda new in RAM things

[Deepan[India]]

And I suppose you bought them in a kit?

[emosun]

should be mentioned the PART NUMBER must be the same , not just the specs. So same make and model. 

[Deepan[India]]

Yes the part number, memory, frequency, timing EVERYTHING will be made same. Will those two work together?  

[Alexsolo]

2 minutes ago, Deepan[India] said:

Yes the part number, memory, frequency, timing EVERYTHING will be made same. Will those two work together?  

Yes, I have 4x8GB sticks on my board, each pair running in dual channel.

[ARikozuM]

23 minutes ago, Deepan[India] said:

And I suppose you bought them in a kit?

You don't need the same RAM to run dual-channel. 

[SupaKomputa]

Different memory should work in dual channel.

1 hour ago, Deepan[India] said:

OMG! But some websites say that 'the ones who're ready to work together are packed together and NEVER ever is sold separately'!

They make it so you buy 2  from them instead of one $$$. And to make sure the setup is foolproof 

On the upside it's relatively cheaper when buying kit pairs than singles.

 

Basically, To work in dual channel you just need to have a pair of stick that is the same size and speed, although some times different speed will work too, but i don't recommend it.

 

Other things you have to consider when buying another stick is making sure the chip manufacturer are the same (hynix, samsung, elpida etc), its written on top of each memory chip module, nowadays it is hard to look at the chip, because they put heatsink on it.

And look at the memory module banking, is it single rank or double rank, single rank only have the chip on one side of the board, double rank on both side. This tells you the density of each memory module, single rank usually slightly faster than dual rank. This info is written in the stickers, look at 1Rx (single rank) or 2Rx signs.

If all factors are the same, i think you'll have no problem with the setup.

 

Dual channel memory work in pairs, so you can put 2x4gb brand A in slot 1 and 3, and 2x8gb brand  B in slot 2 and 4.

To be safe, buy extra stick exactly the same as the one you already have. But if you can't, just buy the same size and speed.

I never have problems mixing different brand as long as speed and size are the same.

 

Bigger memory doesn't mean faster computer, it the depends on how many programs you're running.

For gaming and office stuff, 8 gb should be enough. But if you do bigger task such as 3d and video rendering, more memory would speed things up.

If you want faster, buy faster memory speed, 3200mhz is the fastest right now, but more expensive.

 

I won't worry too much with dual channel setup as it only give you roughly 10% speed difference from single channel.

If your motherboard only have 2 slots, i recommend you to buy the biggest and fastest single stick you can get and upgrade it later.

8 Gb is the minimum today, don't buy 2x4gb, instead buy 1 stick of 8 and buy another in the future, single stick of 4gb is already obsolete, avoid at all cost, nobody will buy it from you if you want to sell it in the future.

The biggest single stick of DDR4 is 16gb right now, but it will get to 32gb in the future.

 

 

 

[Santo22]

Just to add, I've also messed around with mixing and matching ram. I've never had a system not boot or do anything funny with running default bios settings. However, with mixed matched ram I wasn't able to overclock them at all and they will run ofcourse at the lowest speed stick you have. So yes it will work typically no matter what you put in, just may not be able to mess with it. And since you are buying the same, you will be fine. 

[mariushm]

You can use memory sticks from different manufacturers and with different memory frequencies and timings. 

ALL memory sticks MUST work at some default timings and frequencies and they have these presets built inside them into a tiny memory chip. What you usually see on the sticker of memory sticks are "performance settings", tighter timings or higher frequencies.

 

If you use memory sticks from different manufacturers, the motherboard will read those "presets" stored in each memory stick and will pick the preset that is supported by all memory sticks installed in the computer. 

So, for example, you can pick a DDR4 2133 Mhz memory stick and then install a DDR4 2666 Mhz memory stick and both memory sticks will run just fine at 2133 Mhz.

 

Here's a screenshot (below) of my DDR3 1600 Mhz Corsair Low Profile memory sticks, using AIDA 64 software :

 

 

As you can see, these memory sticks have 3 default presets and 2 performance presets. The motherboards go from the fastest preset to the lowest preset and pick one that's compatible with the other memory sticks installed in the system

 

So this particular memory stick can run at  2 x 457 (915 Mhz) with very fast timings, or 2 x 533 (1066 Mhz) , or 2 x 666 (1333 Mhz)  CL9 or  with the performance profile, they can run at  2 x 800 Mhz (1600 Mhz) CL10

 

If I install a DDR3 1333 Mhz memory stick, the motherboard will automatically pick the 2 x 666 (1333 Mhz) preset from this memory and compare it with the 1333 Mhz from the other memory stick, and pick the timings that work on both memory sticks.

 

The memory kits simply guarantee that both memory sticks have the same presets in them , and that they're guaranteed to work at higher frequencies. They make some sense if you go for very high frequency memory sticks like 3200 Mhz or higher, but not for memory sticks with technical parameters that can be reached by various manufacturers of memory sticks (for example 2133 Mhz to 2667 Mhz can be achieved by lots of memory sticks, no worries about compatibility between memory sticks) 

 

Dual Channel can even work with memory sticks of different sizes, but it's recommended to use same size sticks.

[Deepan[India]]

7 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

Different memory should work in dual channel.

They make it so you buy 2  from them instead of one $$$. And to make sure the setup is foolproof 

On the upside it's relatively cheaper when buying kit pairs than singles.

 

Basically, To work in dual channel you just need to have a pair of stick that is the same size and speed, although some times different speed will work too, but i don't recommend it.

 

Other things you have to consider when buying another stick is making sure the chip manufacturer are the same (hynix, samsung, elpida etc), its written on top of each memory chip module, nowadays it is hard to look at the chip, because they put heatsink on it.

And look at the memory module banking, is it single rank or double rank, single rank only have the chip on one side of the board, double rank on both side. This tells you the density of each memory module, single rank usually slightly faster than dual rank. This info is written in the stickers, look at 1Rx (single rank) or 2Rx signs.

If all factors are the same, i think you'll have no problem with the setup.

 

Dual channel memory work in pairs, so you can put 2x4gb brand A in slot 1 and 3, and 2x8gb brand  B in slot 2 and 4.

To be safe, buy extra stick exactly the same as the one you already have. But if you can't, just buy the same size and speed.

I never have problems mixing different brand as long as speed and size are the same.

 

Bigger memory doesn't mean faster computer, it the depends on how many programs you're running.

For gaming and office stuff, 8 gb should be enough. But if you do bigger task such as 3d and video rendering, more memory would speed things up.

If you want faster, buy faster memory speed, 3200mhz is the fastest right now, but more expensive.

 

I won't worry too much with dual channel setup as it only give you roughly 10% speed difference from single channel.

If your motherboard only have 2 slots, i recommend you to buy the biggest and fastest single stick you can get and upgrade it later.

8 Gb is the minimum today, don't buy 2x4gb, instead buy 1 stick of 8 and buy another in the future, single stick of 4gb is already obsolete, avoid at all cost, nobody will buy it from you if you want to sell it in the future.

The biggest single stick of DDR4 is 16gb right now, but it will get to 32gb in the future.

 

 

 

It's kinda rewarding to receive such a big and explained post against such a question from a beginner!  I think 'Thank you' would be insulting here.   Man, may you live long!  And well, yeah 4 GBs are quite worthless I think too. I bought that just to get my PC setup up and running. With what budget I had that time, an i5-7400, a  B250 board and a 4GB 2133 RAM were all I could afford! I don't play games that much. I only play some MOBA games. So I'll add another 4 GB RAM in future or will replace with 2*8 GB @ 2400MHz.  I completely understand and agree with your points man!  Will buy a graphics card in a year or so because currently I don't have money and NVIDIA and AMD people are just mad  Peace from India! May God bless all.  

[SupaKomputa]

get rid of the 4gb when the price still good.

sell the 4gb and buy one 8 gb 2400 mhz or better.

having a stick will give you more headroom to upgradability in the future when (if) 32gb is needed.

and i promise, you wont miss anything from dual channel.

 

single channel 2400mhz (or 2666) vs dual channel 2133mhz i think will be the same in term of performance, it would be better if you overclock it.

 

for the gpu, get a used gtx950, its cheap now and you can game at 30fps most of the time.

[Deepan[India]]

I already have a spare GTX 970 from my elder brother but I will buy new one. The idea of selling the RAM is good! I'm on it! Thanks man!