8gb vs 12gb

[jripper28]

Hello everyone, I have a question about RAM and efficiency. I currently have 12 gigs of RAM in my system, one pair is G.skill sniper series (2x4gb) and the other is G.skill ripjaws (1x4gb). I know, it's always best to match RAM, but it was a black Friday deal last year on newegg I couldn't pass up.

Here is my question, would my system perform better if I removed my 4gb ripjaw RAM? I'm not too keen on how the way RAM works (I.E. dual channel etc), so I just wanted to know if it would be beneficial to remove the 4gig stick?

I have noticed that when I try to overclock the RAM, one (or maybe all) the sticks don't like going over 1400+mhz. Here are the sticks in my rig.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231416

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231310

Thanks for any feedback guys!

-JR

 

[avenseth12]

You have 2 different RAMs in your PC which is why you arent seeing the benefits. YOu need to buy a set of the 1st link to maximize your ram

 

[Dupontrocks11]

You should never OC different types of RAM, even if the Voltages, latency and clock speeds are the same. Right now, when gaming, the extra 4 GB doesn't really get used as most games aren't optimizedfor using that much RAM/ it's unnecessary to use that much. If you are keen on overclocking,

 

[Dupontrocks11]

Then remove the 4GB stick and overclock the 8GB,

 

[steddora]

I'm not absolutely sure here, but I do think running a dual channel kit in the right slots and adding a third chip into one of the second channel slots will actually cause all of the ram to perform at single channel speeds. For the most part I try to stay away from that and just get either a quad or dual channel kit that is compatible with the motherboard I have.

Another rule of thumb, when using multiple different speeds/types of memory; the entire set of chips will be as slow as the slowest one in there. So that 4Gb DDR3 1333 is actually causing the entire set of ram to run slower. It's actually going to be more of a hindrance to the system performance because of it's slower speed than the system will have gained from going from 8gb to 12gb.

I'd pull that 1333 chip out and run just the 8GB at 1600mhz rather than dropping the entire set of chips to 1333.

 

[jripper28]

Thanks for the reply guys, I appreciate it. So I guess i'll go ahead and pull out that 3rd stick then? Here are my specs and timings.

Hopefully i'll be able to get the dual sticks to 1600 with tighter timings. I hope it certainly performs better without that 4 gig stick