3 sticks of RAM vs 4 sticks

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emailadress2018

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Mainboard Asus ROG Maximus VII Ranger +4790k@ 5.0ghz +gtx 1070

I curently have 4gb+4gb (slot 1and 3) +8gb (slot 2) of 1333mhz cl9 g.skill Ram. Cpuz and all other programs say it runs in Dual Channel memory. I know this mainboard only supports dual channel and not tri-or quad channel so I guess I have 8gb that run in single channel( and single channel is bad for some games)
Question is: if i buy another 4 or 8gb to populate the 4th slot will the performance increase? I am referring to the accessing speed of the ram ..not size because I bearly even use/need 16gb (of all the apps/games I run on my pc, battlefield 1 uses the most ram-ca 11gb) so the 20 or 24gb would be definitely overkill from a size pov).
I would just buy another stick without asking here if I wouldn't have previously heard that populating more ram slots somehow makes the CPU slower.. (because of lanes or something) ..or at least that was the case with my previous amd fx system.. So that's what I want to know: will I get better FPS in games by adding another stick or not?

Please refrain from telling me my cpu or ram is old/ bad/slow ...I know .. a 35€ small ram upgrade (the 4th stick) I could afford without a problem.. 350€-500€ for a completely new system (except ssd, GPU and psu) I CANNOT AFFORD. Also, buying a whole new16gb 2400mhz ddr3 kit now is to expensive and not ok for the future..in about a 1 year I will change system to ddr4 anyway ..but not now.
 
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By getting another stick to fill the 4th slot, you will bring your system back to dual-channel instead of having one stick running with a lower memory bandwidth. However I don't know if you will see a difference in actual day to day usage. IF you are getting a 4th stick you will need one that is 8GB like your 3rd stick and has the same CAS latency. I personally will just leave it as is because spending money on another 8GB stick will give you 24GB of RAM. Do you need 24GB of RAM? Maybe, but probably not.
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madmatt30

madmatt30

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4+4gb in one channel & a single 8gb stick,in the other channel is entirely capable of running dual channel on some board/cpu combos.

If cpu-z says you're running dual channel then its 99% likely that you are.

Adding another stick will,definitely drop it to,single channel.

Leave it how it is.





 
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SkyBill40

SkyBill40

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Leave it alone. There's no guarantee that a new stick added to the mix would work anyway as RAM is somewhat fickle like that. The best way to assure yourself of compatibility would be to buy a matched kit and seeing that is not an option or a consideration, you may as well run as you are.
 
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emailadress2018

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Thank you for your answers guys.... So it's not possible that by populating the 4th slot it will run : 1+3 in dual channel and 2+4 in dual channel? So not quad channel but 2x dual channel.. Getting the exact same ram stick wouldn't be a problem for me because I can get it from the same seller from where I bought the new 4+4 last year..(I was rocking just the single 8 GB stick until then) .. I watched out for all the specs to match up to mine and they work together very well..no problem.
 
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gasaraki

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By getting another stick to fill the 4th slot, you will bring your system back to dual-channel instead of having one stick running with a lower memory bandwidth. However I don't know if you will see a difference in actual day to day usage. IF you are getting a 4th stick you will need one that is 8GB like your 3rd stick and has the same CAS latency. I personally will just leave it as is because spending money on another 8GB stick will give you 24GB of RAM. Do you need 24GB of RAM? Maybe, but probably not.
 
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gasaraki

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Don't listen to madmatt, he is wrong. The 4th stick WILL bring is back to running at dual-channel.

 
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emailadress2018

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I think madmatt and gasaraki are both right .. it's running in dual channel now also..but only the first 8gb (the 4+4 pair) ..the other 8gb is single..so only when I go over 8gb I get single channel performance... and that is bad :https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0XmCE7Qfbt4#
Not my video or exact problem but close...
 
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SkyBill40

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Again, to run in true dual channel, you need a matched pair or a full matched set should you have four DIMMs to fill. Mixing capacities and speeds will cause problems if they work at all. I said this before and it was apparently ignored. The only way to get dual channel is to run two identical sticks (or four). Period.
 
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madmatt30

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wayneboyd1979

wayneboyd1979

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Slots 1,3 2,4 dual channel.
You will run only 1 pair dual channel other single regardless of software etc... saying it's all dual channel.
You may not notice much improvement from 3 sticks to 4 sticks of ram.
Technically 2 sticks or 4 are better configuration regarding how your graphics card addresses ram.
Sorry to be blunt but I've done this myself and not gained anything with odd ram. Keep in pairs and good look. Also most motherboard will not cope with memory mixed with different voltages only various speeds will run at the slowest.
 
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