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So, I have a desktop which have a free RAM slot available and can host up to 16gb of RAM and I now need to fill the slot since I need to increase my computer computation power.

This is my current hardware:

CPU INTEL COMET LAKE I3-10100 3.6G (4.3G TURBO) MB ASUS PRIME H410M-D

VGA-DVI-HDMI SSD-SOLID STATE DISK M.2(2280) NVME 250GB

DDR4 16GB 3000MHZ HX430C16FB4/16 KINGSTON HYPERX FURY BLACK

Power supply ATX 500W FORTRON MOD. HYPER K PRO HK-500 80PLUS ACTIVE PFCCL16

Problem is I can't find that specific model to buy. What I can find is this:

Kingston FURY 16GB DDR4 3000MHz CL16 Beast Black RAM 1x16GB, PC4-24000, CL16, voltage: 1.35V, passive cooling and XMP 2,0

And, since I am no expert in hardware, I wonder if these two are compatible and if the one that I am planning to but will work. Any suggestions?

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  • Your computing power will not increse, you need a more powerful cpu for that
    – Irsu85
    Oct 6, 2021 at 11:38
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  • @Irsu85 yes I am not much into this but I guess I will have more possibilities to run multiple programs at the same time, while a computation that is currently taking 14GB will take the same amount of time and RAM, I guess...
    – gabt
    Oct 6, 2021 at 12:00
  • I'd suggest looking for a set of two 16GB sticks of ram to upgrade and to remove the one you currently use. Ram can run in "dual channel" mode. where it can use both ram sticks at the same time. However the sticks need to be very similar to each other to achieve this and there needs to be an even amount of ram sticks available. In theory you could run a mismatched set of ram, but that can often lead to instability.
    – skippy
    Oct 12, 2021 at 7:49
  • ok, this is also good to know. But, what do you mean by instability?
    – gabt
    Oct 12, 2021 at 8:36

1 Answer 1

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Most computers parts, unfortunately, are being built for a rather short period of time these days... as you just found out.

For memory to be compatible, you want to find a replacement which has at least the exact same number of pins (like 288), speed (3000Mhz), and technology (DDR4).

Further, there are features such as ECC which, if not present on one stick will not work at all (as far as I know) and at times can generate issues (i.e. "break" the memory).

A good idea is for you to check your motherboard memory compatibility chart. However, it's likely that they would not have updated it with newer sticks... so it's probably not going to be that helpful.

Finally, if you plan to keep the old stick, you can test with one new stick and if it looks like you can use one or the other but not both together, then purchase a 2nd of the same new model and that should work together. It makes it a bit more expensive (unfortunate), but probably better than not being able to increase your RAM at all.

In terms of speed, like others said, it won't per se go faster since your CPU will remain the same. However, you will indeed be able to run more software together and avoid swapping to disk, which is definitely a great way to make things go faster on your computer (i.e. you don't have to close/re-open things all the time).

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    As you mentioned it's very unfortunate how hardware is upgrading superfast. Indeed, I bought the computer like 1.5 years ago so and it's already time to upgrade it...anyway thank you for your advice!
    – gabt
    Oct 12, 2021 at 7:33

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