Mixing Ram capacity and Speed (Intel)

[ItsmeagainhK]

Hello,

I have recently bought 2x 16gb ram 3200mhz and using slot A2B2. Would like to know if i can use the old 2x 8gb 3600mhz to slot into A1B1 and if it will work ?

I understand that the 3600mhz will down clock to 3200mhz but if it works that way, i wouldnt mind. Its just that i have 2 sticks of 8gb 3600mhz lying around and thought i could use them as well.

Thanks

 

[Koenig168]

Should work.

Pointless though, since you would end up with lesser performance as this is a daisy chain MB.

 

[ItsmeagainhK]

Should work.

Pointless though, since you would end up with lesser performance as this is a daisy chain MB.

Why would it be pointless ? Do you mind explaining the lesser performance / daisy chain aspect ? I dont understand lol.

Do you mean the 3600mhz would clock to 3200mhz therefore no point ?

 

[elmariachi]

Why would it be pointless ? Do you mind explaining the lesser performance / daisy chain aspect ? I dont understand lol.

Do you mean the 3600mhz would clock to 3200mhz therefore no point ?

Daisy chain type works better with 2 memory modules, while the t-topology works better with 4 memory modules.

Z390 Aorus Master is T-Topology type but Z490 onwards all are Daisy-chain.

You should never mix different makes and models especially with different speeds and/or memory timings. Your performance will tank as it will run to the slowest memory speed and latencies or maybe even worse if the motherboard is not able to train and will thus lax the memory timings further.

If you wanna run optimal speeds, get matched pairs either 2x8gb or 2x16gb or 4x8gb or 4x16gb.

 

[wwenze]

Well one of the below two things can happen:

1) You can manually overclock your slower ram, usually by loosening the timings e.g. a 3200 CL16 can be overclocked to 3600 CL18. Then just run both at that new speed.

2) Depending on how happy your motherboard and cpu is, you may get only 3200 or even slower at 2933 or lower because intel's memory controller suck @ss are of an older design.

Point is, just as you would expect, you get moar RAM but prepare to pay for speed penalty. Zero if you're lucky.