Memory Compatibility question (upgrading RAM)

[edale]

OK, so last tax season I built up my new (then) gaming PC, but I was shy on my return for getting it to the point I wanted it, so now that the new tax season has come, I can afford to finish it up. One of the most important upgrades, an additional 16 GB of RAM, to bring the PC up to 32 GB RAM total (and yes, I actually need that, I keep maxing out my RAM too quickly as-is).

 

Now the RAM that's currently in my system is:

 

G.Skill TridentZ DDR4-3200 PC4-25600

F4-3200C16D-16GTZ

2x 8GB = 16GB total

CL16-16-16-36 1.35v

 

Obviously, I'm going for another set of 2x 8GB TridentZ DDR4-3200 PC4-25600 RAM to make sure everything stays nice and compatible, but I've come to an issue I don't know the answer to, and don't understand well enough to properly phrase a Google search.

 

The thing is I can find the identical RAM, but for a whopping $58 cheaper, I can get some RAM that's identical except for one thing:

Instead of a 16-16-16-36 timing, it's 16-18-18-38 timing.

 

I don't really mess with overclocks and stuff like that, so I'm not even sure what the 16-16-16-36 / 16-18-18-38 actually stand for, other than knowing that lower numbers are better.

 

So what I need to know is this:

Can I have my RAM with 16GB at 16-16-16-36 timing, and the other 16GB at 16-18-18-38 timing?

If I do install the RAM like that, can it cause any problems down the line?

What exactly do those numbers even represent?

 

Thanks for the help clearing this up for me!

[Saieshan Dadi]

Those number are cas latency numbers. I wouldn't recommend having conflicting cas latencies as RAM is a very iffy. I wouldn't try because you might end up wasting your money. Even mixing identical different sets that were not manufactured to run together can cause issues with RAM. Just be safe and get the more expensive set for a maximum chance of compatibility  

[Electronics Wizardy]

You can mix the dimms fine, it will just run at the lower speed.

[edale]

Well... 2 completely contradictory answers... Isn't that just... Swell.

[NMS]

@edale, while you can mix, it is not recommended.

 

[edale]

7 minutes ago, NMS said:

@edale, while you can mix, it is not recommended.

 

Thank you! Video gave me exactly the info I needed.

 

1:56 - Same model is most important - already doing this.

2:15 - Same speed RAM is ideal, but not a real issue.

 

I should probably just go into my BIOS and manually set the CAS latency to 16-18-18-38 when I install the new RAM, that way I don't have to worry about any auto-configurations causing problems.

[NMS]

6 minutes ago, edale said:

Thank you! Video gave me exactly the info I needed.

 

1:56 - Same model is most important - already doing this.

2:15 - Same speed RAM is ideal, but not a real issue.

 

I should probably just go into my BIOS and manually set the CAS latency to 16-18-18-38 when I install the new RAM, that way I don't have to worry about any auto-configurations causing problems.

That's a good idea. And make sure to stress the system a bit once done to make sure it's stable. Play RAM demanding games, use some Adobe products (video/photo), or open a lot of Chrome tabs.

[edale]

11 hours ago, NMS said:

That's a good idea. And make sure to stress the system a bit once done to make sure it's stable. Play RAM demanding games, use some Adobe products (video/photo), or open a lot of Chrome tabs.

Oh, I won't need to do anything special to stress the RAM, my normal use does that just fine, lol.

[pas008]

what are you doing to max out your ram

 

just curious

[edale]

At any given time I typically have about 100 tabs open in chrome (and for some odd reason the 4-5 webtoons I read tend to take up more memory than the rest of the tabs combined, lol), I also do a fair amount of audio and video editing (which comes with the RAM-intensive rendering), and of course there's the gaming (It's nice being able to run everything with max video settings, then using additional programs like SweetFX to further process and enhance the video).

 

For gaming, I've taken to upscale rendering to 4k, then downscaling that to 1080p (my monitor's resolution), which eats up quite a bit of system resources (though I'm not sure how much this actually affects system RAM given my card's 8GB of VRAM).