Mixing 4-4-4-12 with 5-5-5-5-12 Ram

Thanks Digerati, Yes, I'd completely forgotten about my board's duel channel capacity. A very important consideration. I guess with my small PC upgrade (new card and 2 more sticks of ram), I wasn't thinking much about the tech. side of 'simply' adding more ram. "Thank you" to all the contributers here Cheers, Lee

Glad you found what you were looking for. To answer what your previous post asked. Like I said, I'm not one to give you advice or assumptions on the benefits of performance memory. I'd like to see some benchmarks to see just how much of a benefit it provides. But, what I was getting at in my message was that it seems to me, if the timings are the same, it doesn't matter if you buy $30 RAM or $300 RAM. Its all running at the same speed, and if it works out of the box, it will probably never go bad. I don't really see the benefits of buying so-called "high performance" memory at a premium price if you can get the exact same speeds from a cheap brand that works. Ofcourse, that would be an assumption, because true benchmark readings would be able to show if there was a difference. But, again, if the speeds are the same between the different brands, I don't see how it could possibly perform any worse, or better, than any other brand. So, in my mind, it comes down to buying a NAME or a LOOK over actual performance or reliability. I'm just not sure if some of those neat heatsinks are worth twice the money.

The benefits of dual channel is well documented - considering it has been around for over 7 years. This is an old, but still good White Paper from Kingston.

what I was getting at in my message was that it seems to me, if the timings are the same, it doesn't matter if you buy $30 RAM or $300 RAM.

I think the difference is similar to buying a no-name generic 650 W PSU and 650 W PSU from a quality maker.

But another difference is in tolerances. When pairing or tripling up modules, you have a better chances the sticks will play well together if from a quality maker as you have a better chance of all the tolerances, when added together, result in a sum that is still really tight. It is probably more important if you will be overclocking.

That said, I think when paying $300, a big percentage of that is paying for all marketing fluff and glossy brochures. I don't buy the cheapest, but I don't buy any where near the most expensive either. And as appleoddity correctly noted, almost all RAM is warrantied for life. I would say if it isn't, don't buy it.

As for the heat shields, I have no doubt they (if properly designed) are much better than none at all - even in a well ventilated case. And again, probably more important if overclocking. However, I have seen some shields so big and fat, it would be very difficult for a fan to get any air in between adjacent sticks. And if there is no room for air movement, the heatsink can't radiate the heat very effectively.

Yes, I agree with you totally. I was thinking after I posted my last message about those guys who like to overclock their RAM. I have no doubts that probably the biggest reason for buying expensive memory is to push it beyond the limits it was designed for. Although I think price or quality has less of an impact under normal operating conditions. I do thnk it is a bit different than comparing to a power supply. There are definitely cheap power supplies and quality power supplies. They don't have lifetime warranties and cheaper supplies are likely to fail or cause problems more often. Where as RAM, I still think it usually works out of the box and never fails regardless of brand or price. Not to mention that a faulty RAM module will not usually damage any other components, where as a faulty power supply could take out every component in your system.

My point with saying buying cheap RAM is "similar" to buying cheap PSUs was most people understand that paying for a quality PSU is better. And to your point, even cheap PSUs "usually" work out of the box, and for most users last until they need to upgrade for more power. But the problem with cheap PSUs is just that they may stop working, cause additional damage - though true, is rare, but a cheap PSU can cause strange problems, just as cheap RAM can. And I also note I have had RAM that was DOA too. And to your point that RAM works and never fails, well, that does not really fit with real world, or the topic of this thread - and that is, adding new RAM and expecting it to work with existing RAM. I feel safe to say you have a better chance of adding quality RAM to quality RAM and have it all work (especially in dual or triple channel architectures) than you do going cheap all around. Certainly, there are countless cases where MemTest86+ reports no problems with individual sticks, but as soon as you put them together, the computer fails. And the only solution is to replace the pair. If you can offer another computer component that has the expected life span of RAM and can be used for a "similar" cheap vs. quality comparison, I'd be happy to acquiesce.