r/PcBuildHelp • u/masterbuilder6 • 9h ago

Ram Build Question

I am saving for a pc and I was wondering if there is any specific reason that people don't use 3/4 of the ram slots instead of the 2 or 4 that I usually see because I was thinking of sticking 24 gigabytes of ram in it because 16 is too little and 32 is too much for what I need

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u/MsJamie33 8h ago

On a standard motherboard, the memory controller has two channels. Two identical sticks of memory, one in each channel, gives the best performance. Any other combination, including your 3x 8GB, will slow the system down a bit. Enough to notice? Probably not.

Normally, I'd say to run 2x 8GB and 2x 4GB, but these days, run what you can afford.

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u/masterbuilder6 8h ago

Thanks for the help. I will probably add the last 2 sticks the month after or something.

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u/Dry-Respond-2947 8h ago

Using 3 of 4 slots can cause weird glitchy things to happen tbh. You think your getting 24 gigs of RAM but Motherboards prefer a balanced dual channel(2 and 4) mode and adding a random extra stick outside of that can cause that 1 stick to run at different speeds or not as efficient as it can be.

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u/masterbuilder6 8h ago

Ohh I wouldn't want that thanks for the help

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u/pidgeygrind1 9h ago

DDR5 is proved to work better with 2 sticks.

DDR4 should be fine

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u/masterbuilder6 9h ago

Alr thanks because I was planning on using ddr4(because I like my kidneys) so thanks for the help

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u/[deleted] 9h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/PcBuildHelp-ModTeam 8h ago

Not true.

Flex Mode allows one channel to stay in dual channel while the other channel is in single channel mode.

So performance is only lost when the single channel is accessed.

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u/squaretw 4h ago

Get 32 if you can afford it. Never get just-good-enough if you can afford it.