Mismatched memory - ok or not ok?

[prism]

I'm about to build my new system which has a 512k stick of Corsair Value RAM, and one of my friends is giving me another stick of 512k for free, although I don't know what brand it is (I highly doubt it's Corsair). They're both DDR 3200, so would they work together if they're different brands or would I just hafta try it out and see? And I know this question's probably really stupid, but there's no potential risk of damaging the motherboard by using two different brands of RAM at the same time, is there?

 

[CraigRT]

it's fine.... the only problem is running dual channel... there is a good chance the 2 sticks might not work in DC... but they also may work in DC.

not running in dual channel though they should be able to work fine together.

There is no risk of damage whatsoever. If the system seems unstable, etc. just pull out one of the sticks to see if they are not compatible.. I say you have a 90% chance of success.

 

[prism]

Oh, I thought if there were two sticks in there it's automatically considered dual-channel. Is that something you have to set up in the BIOS? And what would the performance difference be between 2 sticks in DC and 2 not in DC? Worth $40 for another stick of the Corsair?

 

[coomar]

depends on the board, a lot of time you can get dual channel to run by bumping vdimm to 2.7 or 2.8, doesn't work if one of the sticks doesn't like the voltage but DC isn't that restrictive, i've run dual channel, one 512 corsair stick with 2x256 (one spectek, one samsung) fine

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: Prism
Oh, I thought if there were two sticks in there it's automatically considered dual-channel. Is that something you have to set up in the BIOS? And what would the performance difference be between 2 sticks in DC and 2 not in DC? Worth $40 for another stick of the Corsair?

The performance difference honestly isn't worth the $.. but also it just depends on which slots you put the memory in. For instance if you put the 2 sticks in the appropriate slots to run dual channel and it's unstable, you could move 1 stick into another slot, cancel the dual channel config and try that. if it runs OK there, it would be non dual channel, but the speed difference really is negligible. doesn't hurt to try running in dual channel... it would likely work fine.

 

[coomar]

when i ran switched from dimm 2-4 to dimm 1-3 on my dfi nf4 and rebooted, i tested out cs:s, same stress test score as I usually get but it was really choppy in actual gameplay, i opened everest and found out my ram was running in single channel, maybe its was the bios or something but single channel performance was abymsal