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So I'm thinking of upgrading the RAM on my computer: currently I have two RAM chips, one 1 GB and one 4 GB. I'm debating on what's the best way to do the upgrade to get the best performance.
Here's what I have in mind: upgrading my RAM to maximize my performance as best I can. I was originally thinking of swapping out the 1 GB RAM chip for a 16 GB RAM chip for a total of 20 GB. However, a few people mentioned that I'd be better off swapping out both chips for two 8 GB chips running in dual channel mode than going with 20 GB total. This seems a bit odd to me, but I'm more of a software person than a hardware person, not knowing much about how hardware works.
Thus, my question is: which would these options would be faster? A system with 20 GB, with a 16 GB chip and a 4 GB chip or a system with 16 GB, two 8 GB RAM chips running in dual channel mode.
As far as operating systems go, I'm running Windows 7 64 Bit, although I'm thinking of creating a new partition to run Debian Linux one of these days on my computer. However, the Windows OS is the one I care about for the most part since it's always going to be the one used the most.
Evan Lynch
Posted 2014-09-13T20:48:16.733
Reputation: 123
2The amount of different between the speeds is likely so insignificant it's not worth worrying about but why wouldn't you place both channels in dual-mode instead of forcing the system to go into a mixed mode? – Ramhound – 2014-09-13T20:51:17.737
If you require all of 20GB of RAM then 2X8GBs will bottleneck you and you would loose responsiveness when the PC swaps to the HDD. However, there are relatively few PC's require 20GB of RAM let alone 16GB so I think you are better off with 2X8GB RAM. Also 2X8GB will most likely be cheaper and 16GB sticks are not supported on most consumer motherboards. – Vamsi – 2014-09-13T20:54:32.107
Ramhound - I only have two spots for RAM on my motherboard, so I have to choose between mixed mode and running dual channel mode - either I have the two 8 GB chips running in parallel, or the 16 GB and 4 GB chips running in mixed mode. I don't know a lot about the differences between mixed mode and dual-mode, but it sounds like dual mode is likely better here. – Evan Lynch – 2014-09-13T21:17:36.520
Vamsi, I doubt I'd need all 20 GB personally, unless the DB use on the Debian Linux partition I plan on eventually installing uses a crazy high amount of RAM, which is unlikely, especially since Linux is almost certainly better at managing RAM than Windows is. Price doesn't look like it'd really be a factor here though, I looked at Amazon and the two options here look like they cost about the same.
Thanks to Techie007 (and both of who commented) for pointing me to the question that answered this. I tried to find one before posting this, but didn't see the linked topic. – Evan Lynch – 2014-09-13T21:21:07.950