mixing ram

[john317]

I have just bought Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL4 XMS2 and my brother has a 1GB stick of Crucial DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 Ballistix Memory he is not using is it ok if i mix these ram hopefully without having to muck about with the bios. I will be using Asus P5Q PRO P45 if that matters.

[staffsMike]

Pc8500 will default to PC6400 anyway so yes it's fine. You may just want to set the voltages to what the RAM's label says, or it may just work and you don't need to.

The general rule is if you're willing to allow the RAM to run at the slowest RAM's speed then it's almost always fine, mixing brand is no real problem, half of them are just rebranded versions of the same RAM anyway..

[john317]

thanks for the advice the voltage for the Crucial says 2.2V i don't know about the Corsair but i don't think it will be that high but if the Crucial runs at 800 MHz i am hoping the voltage will not need to be so high. What about latency do you think the Crucial will match the Corsair 4-4-4-12.

[staffsMike]

At PC-6400 the crucial will probably be fine at 1.8v (what it defaults to, it won't need all 2.2V I don't think).

It will default to 5-5-5-18 (they both will) See what works for them both, I would think 4-4-4-12 would be fine though