RAM Compatibility

[HunterL]

im building a pc on a pc building website and since the ram prices are so high at the moment im planning on just getting one ram stick (1x8gb) DDR4 at 2400Mhz, so heres the question....in the future if i wanted to upgrade to 16gb do i have to buy the same exact model of ram? or just any ram with the same ddr type and speed (Mhz)

[Trulop]

well not necesarilly. I personally as well as probably quite a few others have mixed and matched RAM over the years when needed and found that it "can" work just fine. Is it guaranteed? no. It could have compatibility issues or stability issues so it either wouldn't work or wouldn't run at the speeds your wanting it to, or could work just fine. If your building an intel PC its a bit less finicky with RAM so a wider variety will work with it, but if your building an AMD RIG its a bit more picky. I would just get a very common stick of RAM that you can easily buy more of in a few years to spare the hassle and uncertainties. Also if you get 2x4gb sticks you can run dual channel instead of single channel, not sure if you were aware of that or not.

[79wjd]

You can get any DDR4 memory. It will just run at the slower speed and slower timings of the two sticks.