Should You Fill All Ram Slots
It does not matter until you tweak. There are a few things to consider. Cost, reliability, maintenance when it does fail, overclocking. If you have quad channel memory you will want 4 or 8, and there will be no difference in memory speed. The third stick is stickier. It can go in any of the empty slots. In that part of memory space, the CPU will get only single channel performance - half the bandwidth - but it should still work. That third stick all lonely in a single channel is what will mess up XMP timing if you use XMP.
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First, I apologize if this has been covered elsewhere; I searched the forums and didn't find this particular question.
This is my first build, so I have the following background info for my question (at the bottom):
I have 3x4GB sticks of RAM (CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9) from my previous triple-channel mobo. The Maximus Vii hero user guide
indicates that the RAM I have is compatible with the board. The guide says that the 'DIMM Socket Support (Optional)' supports '2',
but not '4'. Which refers to the following:
'(2) Supports two (2) modules inserted into either the red slots or the black slots as one pair of Dual-Channel memory
configuration.'
Question: This might be a newb question, but can I use all three sticks? Configure two of the DIMMs for Dual-Channel, and then
simply add the last stick in the appropriate open slot? Doing so won't cause the Maximus not to POST or somehow damage the
board?
Thanks folks.