RAM upgrade advice?

Quick question for you guys. My rig is getting up there in age—I'm running an ASUS Z97 Pro4 motherboard paired with a 2x4GB kit of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR3 1866. So, I'm sitting at 8 gigs total right now. A buddy and I recently started playing C++ again, and the game itself, along with the servers, really demands at least 10 gigs of RAM. Anything less than that causes these massive FPS drops because the maps are just too huge. I decided it was time to upgrade, and I found this 16GB DDR3 1866MHz (2x8GB) Patriot Black Mamba kit, part number PV316G186C0K
.
So, here’s my dilemma: can I just casually pop these sticks in alongside my existing 8 gigs to hit a total of 24 gigs? Or is that a recipe for disaster? It feels a bit weird because I never see anyone talking about having 24 gigs of RAM; it’s always 8, 16, or 32. Nobody seems to run 24 gigs, haha.

It’ll probably work, honestly. There’s a slim chance it might not play nice with your old RAM, but if that happens, I guess you could just sell the old sticks and upgrade to 16GB. Easy fix...

fadedorca66 said:It’ll likely work just fine. There’s a slim chance they won't play nice with your old RAM, but if that happens, you can always just sell the old sticks and upgrade straight to 16GB. Problem solved...

But how am I supposed to know if they won't be compatible with what's already in my rig? Like, will the computer just refuse to even boot up or what? xD

Either you'll end up with no display at all, or you're looking at a BSOD and other fun little surprises. I guess you should probably reset your BIOS to factory defaults before you try swapping in those new sticks.

fadedorca66 said:Exactly. You’ll either end up with no video signal at all, or you'll be staring down the barrel of a Blue Screen of Death and other similar headaches. Don't forget to reset your BIOS to factory defaults before you try to seat those new sticks of RAM.

Aha, alright then. I have one last question: what exactly do you mean when you say I should reset the BIOS to factory settings? Since the day I bought this computer, I haven't touched the BIOS settings even once. Does that mean I don't need to touch anything, or is there still something I ought to do before I go ahead and swap in these new sticks of RAM?

Maybe try jumping into the BIOS and hunting down whatever "restore BIOS defaults" option is sitting on your board, then just save and reboot...

Just How bad is Mixing Memory

Zachary Lopez3 said:So my question is, can I just casually toss another stick in there next to these 8GB modules and end up with 24GB of RAM? Or does it just not work like that? I've never actually heard of anyone running 24GB of RAM—everyone seems to go for 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB. Nobody ever has 24GB, haha.

It’s unpredictable. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But since you're clearly planning on upgrading your RAM anyway, I'd suggest just picking up a 2x8GB kit for 16GB total, which should be plenty for what you need—honestly, having very little RAM feels pretty silly these days. If it plays nice with your existing 8GB, great. If not, oh well. Just pull the old 8GB out. Actually, if I were you, I'd just grab a 2x16GB kit right now and forget about those old sticks forever. Of course, that assumes your motherboard supports that much capacity (I haven't looked up the specs for that specific board). Regardless of what the board can handle, just buy enough RAM to fill it properly, then sell or toss the old stuff.

granitecrane2 said:It’s unpredictable. Sometimes it’ll work, sometimes it won't. But since you mentioned you're planning on upgrading your RAM anyway, my suggestion is to just grab a 2x8GB kit for 16GB total; that should be plenty for what you need, and honestly, having very little RAM these days is just asking for trouble. If you can get it to play nice with the existing 8GB, great—if not, oh well. Just swap out that old stick. Personally, though, I’d say go straight for a 2x16GB kit and just move on from that old 8GB module forever. Assuming your motherboard supports it, of course (I haven't looked up the specs for that specific board). Regardless of what the board can handle, just buy enough RAM to make it worth your while, then sell or toss the old stuff.

The RAM should be arriving via delivery in an hour or two, so I'll just wait and see how it goes. Buying 32GB of RAM for this old machine feels like throwing money down the drain xd. Even though it's still a pretty decent rig with the GTX 970 and the i5 4590, there isn't a single game out right now that actually demands more than 16GB of RAM, so I really don't want to waste cash on 32GB for this setup.

So, here’s the deal: I just installed some new RAM. Man, what a headache—I had to pull out both the graphics card and the CPU cooler just to reach the second DIMM slot. Total nightmare, but I finally got them in and they're running.
View on imgur
The system recognizes all 24 GB of RAM, and so far, everything seems stable. No crashes, no sudden shutdowns, no Blue Screens of Death. I even ran the Windows memory diagnostic tool and it passed without any issues. I’m not quite sure what else I should do to be 100% certain everything is fine, BUT there is a catch. If you look at the image on the right, you can see the speed is sitting at 1600 MHz. Why on earth did it drop from 1866 down to 1600? Both the old sticks and the new ones are rated for 1866 MHz, right?

Now, I’ll say this—and please don't laugh at me, because I was telling my brother earlier—how is anyone actually supposed to know the exact specs of a RAM stick just by looking at it? Sure, the box or a picture might say one thing, but that doesn't mean the hardware is actually hitting those speeds; you only really know once the motherboard reads the module. So why did it default to 1600 MHz? I went into the BIOS and manually bumped it back up to 1866, but it feels wrong. It’s supposed to happen automatically, isn't it?

In the BIOS, under the "AUTO" setting, it says the motherboard will automatically set the frequency based on the RAM's capabilities. So why did it settle on 1600 instead of 1866 when set to AUTO? That's legitimately worrying to me xd

And now, feeling like a total idiot, I have to ask: why does it show 1867 MHz now that I've manually set it to 1866? xd haha
View on imgur

Sometimes you just have to tweak the frequencies manually, especially when you're mixing two different types of RAM. If everything runs fine at 1866, I guess just leave it there, but if it gets unstable, maybe just dial it back to 1600MHz. You probably won't even notice the difference in performance anyway.

fadedorca66 said:Sometimes you just have to manually tweak the frequencies, especially when you're mixing two different types of RAM. If everything runs fine at 1866, just leave it be; if things start getting unstable, dial it back down to 1600MHz. You won't even notice the performance difference anyway.

Well, I've been running it for a few hours now and everything seems perfectly normal. No issues at all—gaming is smooth without any blue screens or other random nonsense.
Also, Task Manager shows 1867 MHz instead of 1866... that's just some weird little bug, right?

I mean, that motherboard probably bumped your clock speed up by like half a MHz anyway, so I'd just ignore it...

Zachary Lopez3 said:So, here’s the deal: I just installed some new RAM. I actually had to pull out my GPU and the CPU cooler just to reach the second slot—man, what a headache! But anyway, they’re in and the system is running.
View on imgur
It’s reading all 24 GB of RAM, and the PC hasn't crashed, rebooted, or thrown a Blue Screen at me once. I even ran the Windows memory diagnostic and everything came back clean. I’m not sure what else I should do to be absolutely certain everything is fine, BUT there is one issue. If you look at the picture on the right, you'll see the speed is listed at 1600 MHz. Why did it drop from 1866 down to 1600? Both the old and the new sticks are rated for 1866 MHz, so why is this happening?

Even those of us rocking high-end boards like an Alienware m16 have to manually tweak the RAM settings in the BIOS. For instance, the default might be set to 2400 MHz, but we bump it up to 3200 or higher. That isn't technically overclocking, because the RAM is indeed rated for 3200; it's just that the DDR4 standard baseline is 2400. That’s exactly why XMP profiles exist.


The video is already set to the specific timecode, so don't mess with the playback position. Just click play and watch from there.

P.S. As it happens, I’m actually using that Corsair Vengeance RGB memory myself—2x32 GB (I'll be adding two more soon to hit 128 GB total, and please, don't ask me why I need that much). I'm not trying to bash any retailers, but honestly, if you go to Best Buy, you can't even find a dedicated section for 32 GB modules.