Newbie Lady Gamer & my Acer Predator 3000 P03-640 I am looking at increasing my DDR4 Ram

TruBlondee

Hi everyone :) I am looking at increasing my DDR4 Ram (to start) and came across this post - my question is: can I go with CL16 or am I stuck with the ugly green CL22? Thanks in advance!

[Edited the thread to add issue detail]

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/673688/ram-compatibility-predator-orion-3000-po3-640-any-help-would-be-greatly-appreciated

billsey

You can mix CL16 and CL22. They will both run at the same speed and with the same clocking.

chugzilla

well, whatever you do so it runs at optimal speed and the same timings, get the same exact memory, be it 2 or 4 sticks, mixed memory works BUT its not the same as matched sticks, i ran mixed memory for months on end, but it makes the mhz slower, but with that being said it does not effect game play, only benchmark tests, i ran 48 gigs for the longest time, and my games ran faster than the original 2x8 that came with my pc or when i put in 2x16 and ran just 32 gigs, i was testing all different combinations lol and now i have 4x16 from crucial all the same part number, bought one at a time, so they are exact and the speed and power my pc has now is unmatched and my games and benchmarks all improved significantly.

BlkWallStCowboy

I'll add to the other comment. Most of the specs only matter if your adding ram to compliment your existing ram.

As for the post your reading. Xmp doesn't just boost your ram to the max speed. It's has a set of defined profiles. So that person likely didn't set it to the right profile to get CL16 latency at 3200mhz. As for the first stick they bought, it could've had a higher default Jedec profile which didn't need an xmp/expo profile to get that speed.

I noticed that there are some times that ram will advertise a speed but it's actually based on a certain XMP or amd EXPO profile.

What I would suggest to do, is to put the actual Kingston model number into google and look at the spec sheet from the manufacturer and it will say in the bottom left side what the Jedec/xmp/expo profile.

I recently bought some Kingston ram for my desktop and I was about to return it because I thought they gave me the higher latency ram(c40 va c36) but when I actually read the spec sheet, the c36 required an xmp profile my motherboard wouldn't allow so there was no point paying more/exchanging for the other ram

chugzilla

yep that all makes sense good point but the problem with that is acer limits us, no xmp in any predator desktop, its disabled and we cannot do anything about it by now most here are well aware of it.

then they also limit the 5000 and 7000 series with ddr5 to 4400mhz no matter what you put in there, so its safe to assume they are doing the same thing with the 3000 series and ddr4.

and in my case using 4x16 im only getting 4000mhz but in all my experimenting with different ram combinations the 4x16 @ 4000mhz runs way faster and better than 2x16 @ 4400mhz in benchmarks and in my games.

then when i was using the 2x8 samsung with 2x16 crucial i was only getting 2000mhz, so my benchmarks were lower from the mixed memory, but my games were still faster having 48 gigs vs 16 or 32@4400mhz.

ive talked to upper level 2 acer support and the techs at crucial-micron they all say its the MB limitations not the chipset and thats about it, they told me if you want your 4800mhz or whatever your memorys base speed is a new MB is the only option we have.

TruBlondee

Thanks all but my question was really alot more simple. I know I need to stick with JEDEC, I am not trying to go to XMP (although actually CAN with this model thru BIOS)… I wanted to know specifically if I can mix c22 with c16 or just best to replace the two c22's (2 x8gb) with 4 8Gb C16. Thanks!

billsey

You can mix CL16 and CL22. They will both run at the same speed and with the same clocking.