Upgrading Ram - Mixing different size sticks?

[spikopsycho]

Hey guys.

Slowly starting to upgrade things now (after 3 years haha)

Basically, I wanna upgrade ram first, as I find the 4gb doesn't cut it at times. Presently I have 2x2gb sticks (Samsung dual ddr3 1333MHz), with the motherboard supporting dual channel memory. So, I tried to upgrade via the PCS website, but it says the 2gb sticks aren't in stock at the moment (but 4gb/8gb sticks are). I only want to upgrade to 8 in total. (Also I cant seem to find any other places that are doing 2x2gb sticks either).

So, question is if I just bought a 4gb stick and pop that in alongside the current ram, will it matter?

Cheers guys

 

[mantadog]

Short answer, probably not but it might.

Longer answer, your motherboard should be able to compensate for any issues raised by running different sized modules. Modern boards are pretty good at handling that sort of thing, they can adjust the settings of the RAM so they run in a kind of safe mode. It may not give you the best performance but it shouldn't be noticeable if any performance is lost, in the real world anyway.

What you could do is sell the 2x2 kit and use that money towards a 2x4 kit, that would bypass any potential issues. I see ebay is getting about £25-£28 on a 2x2Gb kit, with RAM on pcs costing about £36 for a 4GB stick it would at least take some of the sting out of the price.

The only up side is that the worst that can happen is your PC wont boot, remove the RAM and it will boot. You cant really hurt anything but your wallet by trying.

 

[spikopsycho]

Thanks for the help. Might give PCS a ring and see if they know how long it will take to get it in stock, as I need to order 2 2gb modules anyway, and the upgrade system only lets you choose one.