Does asymetrical RAM hurt performance?

Does asymetrical RAM hurt performance?

My laptop has 12GB RAM (4GB soldered, 8GB stick) and it feels a little slower than before when I had 4GB + 4GB. Is it just placebo?

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>Does asymetrical RAM hurt performance?
yes look into raid, ram uses (if you keep it simple) a similar way of datastorage/access as raid0

If you want performance get a SSD.

Yeah, it goes from dual channel to single channel mode.

Dual channel boasts a theoretical advantage of 100% but ends up like 33% more speed.

It increases your iGPU from 64 bit to 128 bit memory bus tho, so you get a moderate bump to iGPU performance.

If you are performing deduplication (God rest your soul) on a laptop, you will need dual channel and as fast a stick as you can get.

Not op, but also curious.
Do the sticks need to be precisely the same model or just the same capacity and chip configuration (single or double sided) to run in dual channel?

Look for timings.

It will drop down to the lowest common speed and latency if it can and still dual channel.

It's really just a case of: suck it and see.

I'm seeing a lot of answers here, what's the final response to this? I'm also curious.

this is the reason why i didnt use the original ram stick my laptop came with. it had only a single 16gb ram stick and it was running in single channel and i could notice the difference right away when i bought a 8x2 gb kit.

Depending on your system you may reduce the effective memory bandwidth to 1/2 or less.

Intel's chipsets have what they call "flex memory technology" which sorta allows asymmetrical configurations to work in dual channel. The way it works the first 4GB of the 8GB stick will run in dual channel with the 4GB on board and then after that the latter 4GB will run at single channel speeds.

OP, lots of misinfo here..

If you add ram to your system, your RAM speed will only ever be as good as your slowest stick. If you had a 2nd stick that's a lot slower, that could make it feel slower.

If your ram is stuck in single channel, or if not all the ram is recognized, it could make it seem slower. You can check in BIOS, make sure all your ram is recognized and it's set to dual channel. Then check your ram speed

Sorta? If you've got a 2GB stick and a 4GB stick you'll have 4GB of RAM in dual-channel mode and 2GB in single-channel mode. All the sticks will also default to the slowest timings and lowest frequency of the set.

You should procure dimms the same storage and timings. Otherwise the system can't write or read in parallel due to the difference in cycles and has to insert wait states.

in theory yes.
i run 8 + 4 on my desktop and cpu-z still somehow shows it as dual channel. explain

Intel flex memory. The 8GB is cut into two 4GB slices and one of them runs in dual channel along side the 4GB DIMM. The remaining 4GB slice runs in single channel and is only used when the rest is exhausted.

Facts: Asymmetric dual channel is a thing. You will get increased performance over single channel, though not as much as true dual channel, up to the matching amount (4+4 in your case). Using over 8GB, you will get single channel performance.

It is faster if you use channel interleaving.

Isn't 12GB RAM in such a set up going to be superior to 8GB dual channel 4GB x 2 RAM?

Placebo. Instead, 12 GB would boost your speed against the standard 4 GB stick because the computer wouldn't be bottlenecked.

One might see slight slow down if your 4GB setup used smaller page file (~2GB from HDD) vs 12 GB ram using ~6 GB page file. This can be remedied by either disabling the page file (since 12 GB would be enough or reducing the page file). Also if the computer has been used for few months, it might slow down due to typical system aging slowdowns.

If you still have your original 4GB stick, why don't you run some benchmarks and shed some empirical light on the matter for all of us?

My ANUS gaymen laptop has 8gb soldered and a 16gb stick, runs the same, maybe faster? Different model ram.

what do drives have to do with ram?
the answer is nothing

i dont think this is supported on many setups

just same capacity, and will run at the slowest dimms speed

>your laptop has 8 ram slots

citation needed

so what if you have a superior amd cpu?

even on amd? what about on core2?

>what do drives have to do with ram?
>the answer is nothing

Right because the hard drive and the memory rarely swap data

you seem more bi-curious to me

It will be slower in games.

>Right because the hard drive and the memory rarely swap data
exactly

so much dross was written that day

OP: the actual answer is here
community.cypress.com/docs/DOC-9681

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Technically 4gb of the memory is not accessed in dual channel.

Are they running at the same speed?
Are they the same (DDRx or DDRxL) ?

>8 ram slots
I think he meant two 8gb sticks mein freund

AMD does not have an equivalent for flex memory. If you run asymmetrical RAM configurations it just downgrades everything to single channel.

RAM bandwidth is not a particularly noticeable performance stat it only affects a few specific situations like file compression and sometimes it has a slight effect on video games.

what about intel core2 (thinkpad x200s for example)

usually the performance difference is negligible to the point it's unnoticeable

Intel CPUs have supported flex channel ram since the 775 days.

it's probably in single channel now.
my desktop have 2x4 + 2x2 but still in dual channel though.
muh amd memory controller.

cpuz derp.

you only need pairs for dual channel...

It depends on the ram controller on the mobo. My mobo manual says asymmetrical ram config is okay and that it maps the symmetrical ram in dual channel and the remaining odd ram in single channel but in practice it just shits itself and isn't stable.