Buying new RAM for PC

[Stephenx63]

Hi all

This is probably a very simple question that can be answered, but I currently have 8GB of RAM in my PC and I'm intending to up it to 16GB or 24GB of RAM. My motherboard is the Gigabyte 970A-DS3P AM3+ which can hold up to 32GB of RAM and the current RAM I have in the PC is KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz. I believe I can only go up to 1866MHz in terms of RAM speed for my motherboard (without overclocking). I have seen some deals on RAM for the HyperX Fury series, which I believe is made by Kingston, so am I right in saying this will be OK to put in with the Kingston Dual DDR3 I currently have, and will be ok as long as I buy speeds of 1600 or 1866MHz. Also would it be better to buy 2 4GB sticks or 1 8GB stick?

Many thanks.

 

[mantadog]

In terms of performance you will not be able to tell if you buy 2 x 4GB or 1 x 8GB sticks. The latter leaves more room to add more later though, so id suggest a single 8gb stick.

Ideally you should match the RAM brands/series but generally modern motherboards are good at running whatever you stick in them. They will just run everything at the speed of the slowest stick. Grab some 1600Mhz stuff and it should work just fine.

 

[venum4k]

1 stick should work fine, in the end the benefits of having 2 sticks or more are redundancy (if one stops working you still have some working RAM till you can replace it) and bandwidth (the performance difference isn't significant however so the benefit is pretty negligible) the disadvantage is that you have less upgrade room.
It's always best to try and match your RAM, however most motherboards can handle it. I've had 2 4GB sticks and 2 2GB sticks in this computer for over a year now with no issues.