Need some help with my RAM.

[wreckthisplace]

Hey all,

I had 4x4GB of RAM in my computer totalling 16GB. I had to send back two 4GB RAM sticks (one was bad) to Corsair. I now have 2x4GB in my computer totalling 8GB of RAM.

I received the package with my new RAM in it today and for some reason Corsair sent me back one 16GB stick. I'm now not sure what to do. Is it ok to use 2x4GB and 1x16GB of RAM (totalling 24GB) or will that cause performance issues? Or is it best to just bite the bullet and go buy 2x4GB of RAM so in the end I will have 4x4GB of RAM bringing me back to where I started, but unfortunately costing me money.

Any help would be much appreciated.


Thanks!

 

[DanielCoffey]

You could ask Corsair to exchange that 1x16 for 2x8 and see if they are amenable. Have you unpackaged it yet? Was there any explanation of why they sent it to you?

 

[throAU]

Send it back and get the correct DIMMs.

Whilst you CAN install RAM in odd numbers of chips, you will get half the memory bandwidth, and I doubt your pro is certified for 16 GB dimms anyway. It may/may not work, but if it does performance will be less than it should be.

 

[Tesselator]

Please specify which MacPro model you have!

MacPro5,1 MacPro1,1 etc. - it makes a huge difference!

 

[Giuly]

Do as intended and buy the second 16GB stick? The problem with this is that Kingston officially doesn't even have 16GB DIMMs for the Mac Pro, only regular 16GB 1333MHz ECC Reg.

 

[xcodeSyn]

I received the package with my new RAM in it today and for some reason Corsair sent me back one 16GB stick.

As already mentioned, the current 16GB memory modules on the market are all registered DIMMs (at least in the US) and I am not even aware that Corsair makes them since it is mainly selling non-ECC and unbuffered desktop/laptop memory. You cannot mix registered with unbuffered memory if your current memory is unbuffered.

 

[GermanyChris]

I would treat that as a sign to buy 2 more (triple channel with 16GB DIMM's makes my mouth water)