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[SOLVED] Beginner question about upgrading RAM

1K views 8 replies 5 participants last post by  Bill_Bright 
#1 · (Edited)
Hello,

I own two very similar desktops, my primary computer already have a Kingston HyperX Black 8GB DDR3, and my secondary computer Kingston HyperX Red 8GB DDR3. The stats are the same; 1866MHz, CL10, 1.5V, Unbuffered, etc. I removed the RAM from my secondary computer and installed it in the appropriate slot on my primary computer. Everything booted just fine straight back to Windows after the upgrade, and the task manager, dxdiag, Speccy, etc shows I now got 16GB of Dual Channel RAM. The question is if mixing these two brands of Kingston (black and red) will work well, and if my computers shows 16GB I assume the upgrade went well? I just need a confirmation by someone so I can sleep at night. :p

Thank you.

Sincerely,
freddiebox
 
#3 · (Edited)
Re: Beginner question about upgrading RAM

Hi and Welcome to TSF!

You can mismatch memory no problem, although sometimes it throws errors. Yours seems to have worked just fine.

As long as they are the same speed and size, they should also run in dual channel mode.
Thank you for the welcome.

In addition before I call this concluded, here is a printscreen from CPU-Z:
http://i.imgsafe.org/7e8035d.png

And as I said they are both Kingston HyperX and according to Kingston's website they are of the same specifications, just different colors, (black and red).
 
#5 ·
Re: Beginner question about upgrading RAM

You have to be careful these days as the density and the cas latency are the important ones to look at not speed and size. Ordinarily brand would not matter as there are 25 brands and 4 people actually manufacturing ram and if you are using even the same brand from a non maker, you can easily run into issues because different batches and same serial number can be different maker, so since Kingston is not really a manufacturer, I always run up to 4 complete tests when mixing ram with memtest86 and each test has 8 segments to be certain the mix is ok as this newer hardware is getting fussier and fussier..
 
#8 · (Edited)
Re: Beginner question about upgrading RAM

The sticks are the same part number so should not be a problem.
Sounds fair enough. I'm glad you all had a look into it. Been using the computer all day with the new installment, plus running quite alot of memory eating applications with a noticeable performance boost. Seems to work like they should. I'll give it a few more hours before I mark it as solved. :)
 
#9 ·
Mixing brands it not the problem it used to be because manufacturing techniques have improved so much over the last few years. RAM is manufactured to meet specific specifications and advances in manufacturing techniques ensures what comes off the production lines match the required specs within very tight tolerances - pretty much regardless the maker.

This means if the specs call for DDR3 1600MHz (PC3 12800), 1.5V, 10-10-10-27, you should be able to buy 4 sticks from 4 different makers and be confident they will work well together. This is especially true on modern motherboards with the latest CPUs as their memory controllers are much more capable of making slightly different RAM work well together too.

But still, today's RAM uses very high-density memory modules, with billions of transistors per stick. Until Man can create perfection 100% of the time, there will always be imperfections and slight deviations - especially on different production lines. For this reason, it is still best to buy all your RAM at once from the same maker to best ensure you are getting sticks from the same lot or production run, minimizing compatibility issues.

The good news is it is almost impossible to RAM that is not warrantied for life. And most sites that have RAM wizards to help you select compatible RAM guarantee the suggested RAM will work.
 
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