Will an additional RAM pair help my speeds?

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firstrig

firstrig

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Dec 17, 2013
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My system is an i5-3570K + GTX 660. I currently have a 4GB x 2 dual channel ram and my mother board has slots for another pair. Will I see any benefit of adding another dual channel pair?

Let's say an app I use needs 8GB ram, so, if I have 4X4GB ram, will the system put all 4 RAMs to use by allocating 2GB worth of processing to each stick?

What I'm trying to find out is whether filling more RAM slots will result in an increase in the bandwidth or will it just result in an increase the RAM capacity numerically with no added bandwidth benefit?

Please note : I am aiming for more bandwidth sharing, not more gigabytes of RAM. I am fully aware that 8GB is more than enough for a casual gamer. My intention of adding another dual channel pair is not to make it 16GB but to give it the benefit of a higher bandwidth*if there is any*. Is there?
 
Solution
ksham
That will operate in a pair of dual channels, not triple or quad channel. It's actually not more helpful either because more RAM modules means more stress on the memory controller and that means less overclocking potential (you have to drop it down a bit), and you may also have to drop your CAS latency across those sets. It's faster if you run two sticks instead of four. It's only nanoseconds faster at best, but that's still a lot when summed up.

So to answer your question - it will increase the RAM size to 16GB but offers more drawbacks than efficiency, which is what you are looking for.
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Karsten75

Karsten75

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Oct 15, 2009
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Unless you have proof (Windows Resource Monitor or equivalent) that RAM is a bottleneck, no it won't help. If you have matching pairs of DIMMS, then you bet the (small) increment of dual-channel memory access. 2 or 4 sticks won't change that, since the memory is still dual-channel. ALl that it will help is to prevent paging and swapping which impacts performance.
 
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damric

damric

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Sep 17, 2010
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Your CPU only has a dual channel memory controller, so it won't increase bandwidth. But, having more RAM is always good. It means more data is cached on the RAM, ready to be read very fast, 10x faster than reading off a SSD, and 100X faster than reading off a HDD.
 
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ksham

ksham

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Mar 29, 2013
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That will operate in a pair of dual channels, not triple or quad channel. It's actually not more helpful either because more RAM modules means more stress on the memory controller and that means less overclocking potential (you have to drop it down a bit), and you may also have to drop your CAS latency across those sets. It's faster if you run two sticks instead of four. It's only nanoseconds faster at best, but that's still a lot when summed up.

So to answer your question - it will increase the RAM size to 16GB but offers more drawbacks than efficiency, which is what you are looking for.
 
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Solution
damric

damric

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Sep 17, 2010
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Even if I had to reduce my RAM speed to 1600MT/s, it would still be magnitude faster than reading from an SSD. Plain and simple, more system RAM is aways better. Graphics cards are where bandwidth > quantity.
 
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ksham

ksham

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Mar 29, 2013
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Not true. Not everything is loaded directly into RAM. So files that you open will still be read from the storage drive first. I did forget to mention that if @firstrig wishes to increase RAM quantity, it's best to upgrade to a kit of 2x8GB instead. I knew I forgot to mention something. Thanks. :)
 
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firstrig

firstrig

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Very precise and to-the-point answer. Thank you for your assistance, it does solve my query.

 
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