LGA-2011-3 with only a single stick of ram?

Finally upgrading to LGA 2011-3 and joining the big boys club :banana:
Have all the parts coming in by Tuesday but my current problem is ram.

My current choice is between 2x 8GB 2133 Dims or a single 16GB 2133 dim.
Believe it or not in Australia its 15$ cheaper for me to buy 16GB Dims.

I do a lot of work in Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Lightroom and Maya.
As well as a few hours of gaming or more a day.

So would there be a huge performance impact or negative in using a single
dim until i can afford more ram?.

 

2x8 will be better. How long will you be waiting?

Quad channel is best, do you need 64GB or is 32 enough

 

Hi there

I've used single RAM module on X99 too and no issues at all,agree seems 16GB RAM are lot cheaper than 4GB or 8GB

If you are really do lots of rendering and do use PS,Lightroom and Maya then add extra 2-3 modules,with 64GB you should be OK for very long time in any rendering,unless you do lots of 4k footage and multitask too

Hope this helps

Thanks,Jura

 

Scenario:
- one 16GB plank now;
- second 16GB plank in future.

Single channel configuration is considered as noticeably less permormant then dual channel one.
Quad channel configuration is considered as slightly more performant that dual channel one.
If you want to save money then go for 2 x 16GB configuration which will be practically equal to 4 x 8GB one in terms of performance.

 

I'm not familiar enough with photo/video programs to comment on the performance loss on those, but for gaming, you'll barely notice a difference between single/dual or quad channel. For a while with my old x58 board I had some RAM die and I was running in single channel for a while until my new RAM arrived. Going from single to triple channel, the difference in fps was in the single digits.

 

Get 16GB now, it'll be passable, then get another 16GB stick soon. That's if you're eventually going for 64GB of RAM.

If you're sticking to 32GB, get 2x8GB now and get 2x8GB later.

 

I should of mentioned my intentions of buying more ram.

I'm honestly split 50/50 on if i want 128GB or 64GB.
Most likely 2-3 Weeks before i could afford another stick or two.

4k Video editing is a possibility in future and i do Multitask like mad
while working soo. Lately i'm really pushing 16GB

 

Oh, then it seems like a wiser decision to go for 16GB sticks. Get one for now, and add another (2) 2-3 weeks later.

If you're certain you want 64GB now but might spring for 128GB later then 16GB x 8 would work out for you and you would not be limited to 32GB x 2 now.

If you're planning to go 128GB eventually and might even go for more then it becomes necessary to get 32GB sticks now.

Corsair have a 128GB 32GB x 4 kit for ~$800 in the USA. Not sure how much it would cost in Australia, but do you have that kind of money and would you even be using the 128GB?

I think sticking to 16GB sticks would be a fine idea for now. If you find you need more, you can sell, although I'm unsure how fast RAM prices would fall (if anything anymore).

 

Never thought anyone would consider single channel on a LGA2011 setup.. since quad channel is one of its big features.

 

Hi there

I would say 64GB is enough for most people and for many people is overkill and right now running 6x16GB DDR4 2133MHz,in total 96GB RAM and they're running in quad channel and in many ways I would be very happy with 64GB,in many programs I'm pushing max 48GB and that's with opened PS,3DS MAX,ZBrush and Poser Pro and DS 4.9 plus Chrome with 32-48 tabs opened

Usually 3DS MAX in my case takes 32GB if I do my usual scene with several persons with 4k maps and subdiv,tessellation modifiers applied etc and several big props with similar modifiers applied

Hope this helps

Thanks,Jura

 

imo if you went 2011 do quad channel other wise 2011 is just waste money.

 

When 2011 v1 just emerged not a single tech site discovered true difference between dual and quad channel configs.

 

not the point one main selling points of those mobo are quad channel and one reasons why there much more expensive. if you gona go 2011 use the quad channel. other wise is waste of money. I also perfectly away under most circumstance one will not see difference in the extra bandwidth. none less why spend the extra money if you not gona use it full potential.

Would you buy a Mclaren for there ridiculous prices just to drive is 30mph and keep it garage?

Im sure others would not see that a valid point but the point stand none the less.

 

He said he planned on buying more when he could afford it. No point in buying less RAM just for Quad channel and then having to buy another whole set again when you find you need more.

Decide what amount of RAM you want to eventually get to and buy the largest capacity single stick you can afford. Then buy the rest later to make it quad channel.

 

last I checked mix and matching ram is not good idea, buying memory as set or you will have compatibly issues cause there not matching.

 

If you can afford the 2011 v3 system get the quad channel ram, not a single.

 

I will say an obvious thing: quad channel is one of many selling points for enthusiast platform. More powerful CPU (with more cores and cache memory), more PCI-X lines, more amount of RAM - are the others. And CPU advantage is more substantial then quad channel memory.

 

Maybe i should have been more clear. I'm going to be buying more ram over
a couple of months and starting off with for the first 2-3 weeks would i see
a Performance impact by using just a single 16GB stick VS 2x 8GB.

Seems like the answer is no so mite as well go the cost effective route of
16GB sticks unless it really does wreck performance in rendering.

But i'm not mix and matching ram.
I'm buying the same 16GB DDR3 2133 sticks from Kingston.

I have seen more servers than i can count with mixed lots of ECC ram...
Never ever seen compatibility issues in 5 years.

We had 64GB and 128GB in a few systems at work and in Maya we always
maxed out the 64GB kits easy. Then again to be fair i'm working in full 3D Animation for film and TV.

 

To answer your question as far as I'm concerned:

no, a single DIMM will not bottleneck your system so bad that you couldn't add more modules later.

But ofc when going multi-module you should go quad-channel. 4x16 GB is overkill for gaming IMO but if you need it for Maya or such then why not.
You can also match different size modules of same type I think. For example I'm running 8+4+8+4 GB configuration of HyperX 2400 CL 11 modules. Identical except for size.

Granted I'm using dual-channel but quad shouldn't be different in this respect (?)

 

Quad channel won't work unless all 4 sticks are the same capacity and speed.