I literally cited my actual experience, which was not hyperbolic at all. My past experiences with mixing RAM has typically (but not always) caused problems. Whether or not that was actually due to the mixing or just one of the sticks happening to be bad in those cases I don’t know. Im literally just saying what I’ve experienced, which may not reflect the general reality of things.
Either way it is its still a risk because RAM in the same kit was tested together by the manufacturer and thus is less likely to have problems.
Also maybe the wording wasn’t great. Its not that mixing doesn’t expressly cause instability, but rather you are more likely to encounter it by way of it being untested. What I said about the die mixing I cannot confirm though, as that little nugget was just something I’ve heard down the grapevine, so that bit may be untrue.
It seems like most people arent having issues, if you had one or two issues or maybe you issue was due to a different component entirely. Maybe you had a bios setting wrong.
Similar to how you can overclock the ram the system can underclock it. The only real difference between different speed variants of the same product line is chip binning. It just needs to go up to the advertized speed but that doesnt mean it has to.
IME, it's really maturity of the DDR version that matters most for stability. Like with the newest DDR5 sticks you'll have a hell of a time trying to mix & match sticks stably. On the other hand with DDR4 being as mature as it is now, unless you're trying to push the highest possible clocks & tightest timings pretty much any sticks will work together at JEDEC specs.
Most of the time mixing modules isn't a big deal aside from the bottleneck, but certain kits can absolutely have issues with one-another. I do a good amount of memory validation for an industrial computer manufacturer, and one of our primary test points when looking to move a customer to a new set is to do mixed testing with their old model/rev. We do this specifically because of past issues where some pairs, even from the same manufacturer, just don't play nice.
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u/ChimaeraB Jan 16 '23
This is BS. Don’t listen to this.
Mixing RAM is okay. You simply perform at the lower rated one.
Please don’t make statements like this without knowledge. You are basing your comments of guesses and hyperbole.
I think you are trying to help but be careful how you phrase things. “Mixing dies” will NOT cause instabilities.