Different RAM sticks on a motherboard

[Mayur Hegde]

Hi,

I am currently using X99 E WS motherboard with i7 6800k CPU. I have 4 sticks of 16 GB DDR4 2400 RAM each installed in my system. The motherboard has the capability to install more 64GB of RAM. The issue is I am not getting the same model of RAM in 16GB however I am getting 8GB model for the same RAM. Is it advisable to install more 4 sticks 8gb RAM which will give me an additional RAM of 32gb or do I have to install 16gb only.
The manual of X99 EWS suggests the following:
You may install varying memory sizes in Channel A, Channel B, Channel C, and Channel D. The system maps the total size of the lower-sized channel for the dualchannel configuration. Any excess memory from the higher-sized channel is then mapped for single-channel operation.

what does the above sentence mean exactly ?


Does it affect the performance in a good or a bad way. Please advise. Thank You

 

[beers]

It's basically telling you it doesn't do any interleaving, so if you have a channel that contains 16GB and a channel that contains 8GB it will pull from both up to 16GB, the other 8GB on the 16GB channel will be a single channel transfer.

You can do what you asked, just make sure each channel has a 16G and a 8G stick, then they're all balanced.