Dual Channel Memory Still Work After Adding Another Stick?

PeterTheNugget

Commendable
Nov 1, 2016
18
0
1,510
If I bought a dual channel kit of DDR4 8GB RAM, and a single channel kit of 8GB, to make 24GBs of RAM, would the dual channel run in dual channel and the single in single, or would all three sticks run in single channel mode?

Same-ish question. If I bought two dual channel 8GB kits to make 32GB would they both run in dual channel ( i know they wont run in quad channel) or would all four sticks run in single channel.

I am looking to buy 32GB of ram, and wanted to get Corsair Vengeance lpx but cant find a quad channel kit, would i be fine buying 2 2x8gb kits or would this decrease performance, im going to be running ryzen so i wanted the vengeance lpx over hyperx fury because for the higher speeds. (I found the 4x8GB kit in black but i am looking for the white version.)
 
Solution
Most modern boards offer a form of flex-mode. Dual channel except for the odd stick. So you would have a combination of 16GB dual channel/8GB single channel. But it is motherboard-dependent.
Do you actually have some specific need for more than 16GB of RAM though? Unless you're regularly working with certain kinds of video editing software or other specific tasks that require a lot of memory, 16GB will likely be plenty for some time to come. Games certainly don't require anywhere close to 16GB yet, and it will probably be some years before they do. RAM is priced quite high right now, so it arguably doesn't make much sense to buy more than you'll be using in the near future.
 

PeterTheNugget

Commendable
Nov 1, 2016
18
0
1,510


I do quite a bit of 3D rendering and I often host gaming servers for my friends, my budget is around 3000usd so I'm not really worried about the cost. I am being really picky with my new build and think it would look really cool to have all 4 dimm slots populated, i know i probably wont use more that 20gb ever, but I like the reassurance that I do have it there if i need it.