Four DIMMs or Two?

[steveharman]

I'll be building with an ASUS ROG STRIX Z370-G socket 1151 motherboard and an Intel 8700K which I plan to overclock (https://goo.gl/4wn3Vr) . I'm at the RAM-buying stage and need a total of 32GB DDR4.

To get the maximum speed benefit from the RAM, am I better buying 2 x 16GB DIMMS and installing into two slots, or 4 x 8GB and installing the memory into all four slots? The ASUS website contains the statement "Improved Stability and Overclocking with all slots populated" but in true marketing tradition it doesn't seem to add any detail to that. Also "improved stability" != maximum speed benefit if i understand it correctly.

Coupled with this, other forum posts seem to recommend 2 x slots filled rather than 4 x - something to do with less work for the CPU's memory controller?

Is there one single answer to this? ;-)

Thanks,

 

[pit512]

Have you found any other opinions on this question?

 

[Fixx2]

My impression is that it should not make any difference. I ordered 2X16GB Corsair kit, leaving 2 empty for future. Potentially if you add 2 later they may be incompatible with the earlier ones, but I would think danger is small.

 

[pit512]

Ok Fixx2, thanks for your input.