Buying 16gig, only use 12.

[egil87]

Hey! The store where I am going to buy my ram is selling the 16gig pack cheaper than the 12gig pack.(over stocked) Thing is, I cant fit the 16gig with my noctua cpu fan.

Is there a difference with buying 16gig and just using 3 sticks, or will that give me less performance than buying the original 12gig?



Thanks

 

[farrengottu]

im assuming that you have a 4 slots for ram. 2 would be dual channel (as in twice as fast, because they split the data recieved), and the 3rd stick would run slower.
how the system utilizes them makes a big difference.
if it considers the single stick as being in the primary pair slots it gets used first. meaning that your computer will run slower than if you just took that third one out. until you use enough memory so that the other two sticks get used. then it will speed up a bit but just for the things that those two are storing.

i would just do pairs.

 

[beenthere]

For best performance with a dual channel mobo use RAM approved for the CPU and use two DIMMS or four DIMMs but not three DIMMS.

 

[egil87]

Ok, I see! Thanks!

Is 8 gigs enough ram to play BF3, stream it, and listen to music?

 

[saran008]

8 gigs is plenty for the things you've listed.

if your casing has top fans, i'd ask you to change heatsink orientation so that the fan pushes air towards top fan & top fans blows them out..
by doing this i can use all 4 slots & 16gigs of rams

 

[egil87]

I see! Thanks!