Mixing pairs of RAM and future proofing

[TomcaT112]

Hi all,

So I'm looking to upgrade the amount of RAM in my system, at the moment I have 2x 8GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1333MHz. What I'm looking to add is another 16GB (2x 8GB) as I have 4 slots on my motherboard.

What I'm wondering, is am I able (and is it worth while) to get a 2x 8GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600MHz kit and have that work alongside my current memory. I've read elsewhere that as long as it's the same type (DDR3) and make (Kingston HyperX in my case), it will just top out at the lowest MHz on offer (1333). That is fine by me for now, as later on, I want to replace the older ram with newer 1600MHz set - that's at least my theory.

Overall, my questions are:
(A) Can I mix 1600MHz and 1333MHz RAM until I replace the 1333MHz with newer 1600MHz?
(B1) Is it worth upgrading a 4 year old PC with more DDR3 RAM, or should I just replace the current 16GB of DDR3 with 16GB of DDR4 to stay future proof?
(B2) If I should go to DDR4, can I? What would prevent that?

Thank you for your help!

 

[Snipergod87]

A) Yes but it wont make much of a difference
B1) Not possible
B2) Not possible, need a new motherboard, processor to move to DDR4

 

[littleleo]

If you want to put your motherboard up to 32GB of Ram. Without knowing your motherboard and your RAM max I guessing it is 32GB. So each slot maxes out at 8GB. So then the best thing to do is buy a 32GB Kit 4 x 8GB DDR3-1600.

A) not a good idea, having different speeds will slow your system down, cause freezing, crashing and cause some BSOD from time to time.

B1) What motherboard uses a max of DDR3-1333 and DDR4 at the same time? If your motherboard takes DDR4 you should have done that in the beginning. I don't see the advantage of going to 16GB DDR4 now.

B2) Again w/o knowing what motherboard you are using I can't say yours supports DDR4. DDR3 & DDR4 are different voltages and the sockets are different and not interchangeable. Some boards came out that supported both but they had only 2 sockets of each type. And remember these days your memory controller is in the CPU so you don't want to burn it out.