Upgrading RAM question

[Billy86]

Hi... I've got a Dell XPS 8910-i7 desktop. It shipped with 8 gigs of DDR4-2133 MHz. Ram.  2 sticks at 4 gigs per stick.  I'm going to go up to 16 gigs. 2 sticks at 8 gigs each.

I found these 8 gig sticks on crucial.com. Specs: DDR4 PC4-25600 • CL=22 • Single Ranked • x16 based • Unbuffered • NON-ECC • DDR4-3200 • 1.2V • 512Meg x 64 •

My question is, are these 3200 MHz? if the RAM sticks were 2133, can I install sticks that are DDR4-3200?

Thanks in advance! 

[msmcleod]

7 minutes ago, Billy86 said:

Hi... I've got a Dell XPS 8910-i7 desktop. It shipped with 8 gigs of DDR4-2133 MHz. Ram.  2 sticks at 4 gigs per stick.  I'm going to go up to 16 gigs. 2 sticks at 8 gigs each.

I found these 8 gig sticks on crucial.com. Specs: DDR4 PC4-25600 • CL=22 • Single Ranked • x16 based • Unbuffered • NON-ECC • DDR4-3200 • 1.2V • 512Meg x 64 •

My question is, are these 3200 MHz? if the RAM sticks were 2133, can I install sticks that are DDR4-3200?

Thanks in advance! 

Yes, according to Crucial they are compatible with the XPS 8910.

They'll work fine, but don't install them alongside the existing ones as a mismatch in speed will almost certainly give you problems (like random crashes / BSOD). If they're going to be installed on their own, it'll be fine.

 

[Billy86]

16 minutes ago, msmcleod said:

Yes, according to Crucial they are compatible with the XPS 8910.

They'll work fine, but don't install them alongside the existing ones as a mismatch in speed will almost certainly give you problems (like random crashes / BSOD). If they're going to be installed on their own, it'll be fine.

Thanks. Right, I would install the new sticks on their own, not mixed with old. Cheers!

 

[slartabartfast]

The standard recommendation is to use the same model RAM for upgrades, or at least match the latency settings. That said, many motherboards are capable of integrating different RAM speeds so long as they are not on the same channel. In some cases that would give you RAM on one channel that is operating at a different speed, in others it will throttle all the RAM to the lowest speed. I would suggest you ask Dell, but in my experience the only help they are willing to give is to help you buy the overpriced RAM that they sell. If you want to mess with it, you can always try a mixture (again not on the same channel) and see what happens, but if you do not want to spend hours analyzing and bench-marking it is probably better to just go all new.  Typically, by the time you are ready to add more RAM, the cost of buying all new has dropped to the point where you do not save much by reusing.

https://www.realhardwarereviews.com/mixing-ram/

 

 

 

 

Edited May 5, 2019 by slartabartfast

[mdiemer]

Sometimes it's best to just can the old ram and buy all new, so it's all the same. Definitely no issues to worry about then. but you can certainly augment what you have with something compatible. If Crucial's wizard says it's compatible, then it is, go ahead and buy it. 

Edit: one caveat, however: if you have two different speeds, the faster one will only run at the speed of the slower one. 

Edited May 5, 2019 by mdiemer

[Billy86]

2 hours ago, slartabartfast said:

The standard recommendation is to use the same model RAM for upgrades, or at least match the latency settings. That said, many motherboards are capable of integrating different RAM speeds so long as they are not on the same channel. In some cases that would give you RAM on one channel that is operating at a different speed, in others it will throttle all the RAM to the lowest speed. I would suggest you ask Dell, but in my experience the only help they are willing to give is to help you buy the overpriced RAM that they sell. If you want to mess with it, you can always try a mixture (again not on the same channel) and see what happens, but if you do not want to spend hours analyzing and bench-marking it is probably better to just go all new.  Typically, by the time you are ready to add more RAM, the cost of buying all new has dropped to the point where you do not save much by reusing.

https://www.realhardwarereviews.com/mixing-ram/

Interesting. But, yeah, I've always just upgraded to matching new RAM and never had a problem. I'd much rather plug'n'play, because, yep, RAM is relatively inexpensive for the computing improvement.