Hey! So I recently purchased the below tower (not the most expensive, but a big step up from my 2011 HP Pavilion) and I have a couple dumb questions-
(Woops- can’t add links. Here’s the Best Buy heading from it: iBUYPOWER - Gaming Desktop - Intel Core i5-9400F - 8GB Memory - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 - 1TB Hard Drive + 240GB Solid State Drive - Black)
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How do I know what kind of RAM to purchase? I followed a youtube video to figure out I have 8GB 2667 MHz DIMM with 3 open ports, but I’m not sure what to do with that.
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Is there a point where the extra RAM is just wasted? I play WoW, some Steam games and watch Netflix but I’m not playing anything too nuts. I’d just like to run WoW as well as I can.
Really appreciate your help!
It will support up to DDR4 2666 RAM since it’s an I5 9400F. The real question is how many slots on that motherboard.
Presumably it has 4, given they stated they had one 8GB stick “with 3 open ports”.
As a broad generality, unless you’re doing massive content creation style stuff (and even then primarily limited to image manipulation), you’re not going to have any use for more than 16GB. It’s possible to use more, sure, but you have to start doing daft things. PS Even with 16GB, 32GB, 64GB or whatever obscene amount, do NOT disable Virtual Memory - you’ll cause far more problems, including performance losses, than any infinitesimal gains could counteract.
Adding a second, preferably matching stick is going to be your best bet. There should be some kind of identifier either silk-screened onto the stick (the white writing) or on a sticker, and searching by part numbers can generally find results. Configure it such that you have Stick-Open-Stick-Open (or the reverse) and that will not only double your capacity to 16GB but also double the bandwidth courtesy of the dual-channel memory controller that CPU has.
If you can’t get a matching stick, an 8GB stick of the same or higher speed is likely to be OK. Just make sure the older/slower stick is in the slot closer to the CPU. This should set the timings according to the older stick, making it less likely to be run outside of spec.
Didn’t even get the reference to a memory bank as as “port” so I missed it, still early, need more coffee. I agree though 16GB is the max I could ever see them using if that.
@OP if WoW is the only game you play you can stick with the 8GB or replace it with 2 8GB sticks for 16
Why would he throw away perfectly good RAM?
He can just add another 2666mhz 8GB stick.
Meh, probably so he can match them up , why would you not want to put the same chips in? this is assuming the one they give you is easy to buy one exactly like it. I get nervous when unlike chips from different manufacturers exist on the same board, I’ve seen strange things like BSOD’s and freezes when doing this.
Best practice is to use the same exact chips. Truth be told there are few manufacturers of memory modules so there’s a chance they could work. Mixing different speeds will always perform at the slowest chips so there could be some sacrifice there for a few pennies.
Now days it’s a small price to pay to buy the same chips and less chance of having potential freezes and BSOD’s.
Because thats throwing away perfectly good memory. Thats why. Its wasting money for no potential gain, as this cant be OCed anyway, or use an XMP profile.
It doesn’t need to be “exactly like it”. It just needs to be DDR4-2666.
Anecdotal evidence is best evidence.
Let me tell you what IT departments the world over DONT do. Throw perfectly good RAM away.
There will be no sacrifice of any kind as it cant use an XMP profile. At worst it might affect the timings, which on this rig are irrelevant anyway.
If by “small price to pay” you mean “literally double the price” - sure, i guess thats one way to put it.
He’s already on a budget. Wasting more of it is stupid.
Thanks so much! I’ll see if I can’t match up the exact same as the current stick. It is labeled.
That’s likely because you had chips with different rated speeds/settings or one of them was simply from an inferior manufacturer.
Well if you just stick another chip in it’ll try to run at whatever the current bios is set at. Assuming the new chip can handle that it’ll be fine, otherwise well see above.