Ok so I’m trying to understand quad channel ram. I know if I’m running 1 stick of ram its in single channel, and if i’m running 2 I’m running dual channel so if I have 4 sticks that makes quad channel right? Or so I have to buy special quad channel ram kits? This question has been bugging me for a wile and I cant find a clear answer online.
four sticks run dual channel
Channel setups are determined by the motherboard. From what I have seen, most of the time 4 sticks run in dual channel. Quad channel, lately, is for WS boards with 8 DIMM slots.
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Depends on the platform. Threadripper does support quad channel memory, Intel 2011 socket support quad channel, but AM4 and 115x sockets are all dual channel no matter 2 or 4 sticks of ram you have.
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As long as the RAM works together and you can match the timings it doesn’t matter if it says single, double, triple or quad channel, the support for that is in the CPU now a days or with the North-bridge back in the day. Mixing and matching RAM isn’t really a good idea though.
Depends on the platform indeed.
Or more specificlly the amount of memory chanels the said cpu has.
main stream platforms like AM4, intel Z370 / Z390 are all running dual channel mode.
HEDT platforms like X299 and X399 threadripper can run in quadchannel mode.
But still it doesnt end there.
For example if you run a mainstream platform.
- populate all 4 slots means dual channel mode.
- populate 2 slots on the same channel mean single channel mode.
- populate 2 slots one on channel A en one on B means dual channel.
Same story counts for quadchannel platforms.
populating 4 slots doesnt automaticlly mean that you run in quad channel mode.
You need to check the motherboards manual which slots you need to populate.
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So long as you put them in the correct slots (and your board/CPU supports 4 channel of course), exactly.
@Seina_Yamada : consult your motherboard manual. But yes, essentially you need 1 or more sticks of RAM per channel.
However typically if you buy a “kit” they are speed-matched DIMMs and supposedly guaranteed to work better together (e.g., you won’t have 1-2 DIMMs that clock much higher than the others, but be limited to the slower DIMM speed). But you don’t HAVE to buy a kit.
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Ah you kinda beated me on my edit above haha 
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Also X58 back in the days was tripple channel.
This was what i was looking for so as long as i have 8 of the same ddr 4 ram sticks my system will run quad channel. That means I just have 2 new ram kits instead of looking for new ram all together. Thank you that’s a time saver now I can start putting my threadripper system together over the next few months.