3 RAM sticks
3 RAM sticks
Hi does it hurt perfomance to have 3 ram sticks instead of 2 ? (dual channel ect) and same question for 2 sticks of 8 gb and one of 16? thanks
Unless it's a triple channel board (unlikely), you reduce bandwidth slightly by using three channels instead of two or four. The decrease is probably not obvious, though it exists.
Motherboards have traditionally supported hybrid operation. When using only 8GB from a 16GB capacity, the system favors dual-channel RAM and runs in that mode. If you exceed the dual-channel limit, it shifts to single-channel. As @Crunchy Dragon mentioned, this leads to a minor performance drop. Using 2x or 4x is better. Another advantage is upgrading from single-rank to dual-rank with four sticks of RAM; most budget DDR4 chips are single-rank, but adding four single-rank modules can create a dual-rank setup, offering a slight speed boost.