So I heard that adding a larger stick of RAM to your existing system only works if you place the larger one closer to the CPU (or in the first slot). Can anyone substantiate this, or is it just baloney?
Nope, get another 4gb stick and read your motherboard manual. It tells you what slots to use for dual channel.
8gb + 4gb isn't symmetrical there for you will only have single channel operation. There's a good reason why ram is sold in matched pairs of equal density.
A single stick doesn't run at 1600mhz only 800mhz which half of the desired data rate, in turn that translates to half the performance. You need a pair running in dual channel mode to get 1600mhz.
So grab another 4gb of crucial the same model and watch your performance double literally.
I am not 100% sure, but I do believe that as long as you have an even number of sticks with the same clockspeeds and timings, they will run in dual channel. My laptop has 6GBs of RAM- 1 4GB stick and 1 2GB stick with the same clockspeed and timings. CPU-Z says they run in dual channel.
However, I know for a fact that the difference between single and dual channel ram is minimal. Single channel is nowhere near the half the speed of dual channel RAM, at least in real-world performance such as file transfers.
In the case of having 2 different sized memory sticks, the system works in a hybrid mode, where the first 4 GB of the 8 GB stick will work in dual channel with the other 4 GB stick, then the remaining 4 GB of the 8 GB module will work as single channel.
Take out a stick and play crysis or something. And of course file transfers won't be greatly affected because what are the files being transferred too? HDDs.
Data to CPU for processing is entirely different from simply transferring files.
CPU-Z may say it's running dual channel, I'd be more interested to see what the boot screen reports.
Well, I personally haven't seen a difference in performance. I have run both single and dual channel in my system and all games I've played have little to no difference.
Also, all the articles I've read have said similar things. A quick google search comes up with some articles:
Hell your right it's not that bad in single channel. Just played metro last light with 1 stick a few noticable blips and less smooth than dual channel but no where near as bad as DDR2 in single channel.