How risky is it to not get RAM from the same kit?

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Hi everyone. Glad to be here, discovered this forum thanks to the awesome YouTube videos.

I’m currently in the process of building a VFIO rig. Because I decided to settle on a Threadripper 2950X, I want to support it with some high-speed low-latency RAM. I decided on 4x 8GB G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3200 CL14 RAM, the non-RGB variant.

How important is it that the four sticks are from the same kit? 2x 2x 8GB would both be cheaper (15% less) and have better availability (a few days instead of two weeks).

For my home server I have bought four separate sticks of DDR4-2133 CL15 ECC RAM (two of which even some months apart) without much issue, but can the same be said for higher clock rates? Or is it too risky and I’d be better off to bite the bullet with the 4x kit?

Also, I saw that there are two types of non-RGB Trident Z sticks, does anyone know whether there is a difference apart from looks? One is silver and red (F4-3200C14Q-32GTZ) and one is silver and white (F4-3200C14Q-32GTZSW). Is one Samsung B-Die and the other isn’t? I couldn’t really find any information on it.

Thanks in advance

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Welcome

No experience with this on Ryzen, but I did the same thing several times with the RAM on Intel machines and never had an issue.

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Seems the latter letters in the part number are just for aesthetics, even between RGB and non-RGB parts.


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Not particularly ; you don’t need RAM from the exact same kit, just same specs (i.e. timings, transfer rates, voltages). And for timings, really look into the timings, and not just the CAS latency. If it’s same specs from same manufacturer and model line, but just different kits, it’s pretty safe.

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Alright, thanks everyone.

I switched my RAM to Samsung B-Die but those aren‘t currently available in kits of four. I‘m going to risk buying two 2x kits and worst case I have to return them at a slight loss. Seems like I would have to go to a lower clock speed in this case anyway.

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