Are there advatages of Ram configuration 4x4 or 2x8? [closed]

Question

If someone was to upgrade Ram to 16gigs is there any distinct advantage of profile used? That being a 4x4 or 2x8 set up. In all my searching there have been a number of pros for each profile. I can find no benchmark results for either setup to compare.

So, if there are 2 profiles of the same manufacturer, same speed, same voltage, same timing and same cas what would perform better?

Such as two hard drives set up for RAID 0 in that 2 disks set up correctly add performance:

RAID 0 (block-level striping without parity or mirroring) has no (or zero) redundancy. It provides improved performance and additional storage but no fault tolerance. Hence simple stripe sets are normally referred to as RAID 0. Any drive failure destroys the array, and the likelihood of failure increases with more drives in the array (at a minimum, catastrophic data loss is almost twice as likely compared to single drives without RAID). A single drive failure destroys the entire array because when data is written to a RAID 0 volume, the data is broken into fragments called blocks. The number of blocks is dictated by the stripe size, which is a configuration parameter of the array. The blocks are written to their respective drives simultaneously on the same sector. This allows smaller sections of the entire chunk of data to be read off each drive in parallel, increasing bandwidth. RAID 0 does not implement error checking, so any error is uncorrectable. More drives in the array means higher bandwidth, but greater risk of data loss. from wikipedia

A few examples from my search - a 4x4 set would lend a benafit in that if one stick failed, you only lose 25% of your Ram vs 50% in a 2x8 set up. Better stability?

a 2x8 set up would have less strain on the memory controler and motherboard. Better performance?

a 2x8 would generate less heat.

a 2x8 set up is easier to over clock (not part of my need, but alot of the comparisons circled around the overclocability ease of the 2 stick set up). Better performance?

There is one outstanding benafit that I have found in at least the target company I have looked at and that is price. The 2x8 is nearly half the cost.

My motherboard supports a max of 16 gigs and I have a 64 bit OS.

Are there any benchmark comparisons in the two configurations to support improved or impeeded performance? Or is that fact that it is RAM and 16 gb is just 16 gb no matter how you slice it?

Edit: as per the mobo specs - Main Memory

•

Supports four unbuffered DIMM of 1.5 Volt DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600*/1800*/2133* (OC) DRAM, 16GB Max

Answer 1

I would say 2x8GiB quality DIMMs (some examples Corsair, Geil, Mushkin, Patriot). Why?

• The chances of a quality RAM to fail is perhaps the same as to your motherboard to fry.

• It's more future proof. In the future 8GiB DIMMs would be easier to find, and, perhaps, cheaper, because 16GiB will become mainstream (now I think it's 8GiB). I've checked how much a 512MiB DIMM cost; I found cheaper 1GiB and 2GiB DIMMs. Also, if you would want to sell them, it would be easier to find a buyer.

Now, there is a catch: you said your motherboard supports only 16GiB of RAM maximum. You should check if your motherboard supports 8GiB DIMMs. Maybe it doesn't. If not, you got only one option: 4x4GiB DIMMs.

Answer 2

I think 4x4 would be a better configuration because with them you will have:

• Higher reliability, as the failure of a module will only compromise 25% of your memory and not 50%. (The one you've mentioned already)

• Higher performance: it's less likely that a module can be busy.