this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2026
41 points (74.7% liked)
PC Gaming
14963 readers
840 users here now
For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki
Rules:
- Be Respectful.
- No Spam or Porn.
- No Advertising.
- No Memes.
- No Tech Support.
- No questions about buying/building computers.
- No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
- No Let's Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
- No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
- Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates. (Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources. If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Feel like you'd be lucky to get single stick because the performance difference is marginal and you have the opportunity to upgrade it to 32GB by buying just 1 16GB stick.
My understanding is that DDR5 is very sensitive to matched pairs of modules. I don't think you can rely on individually purchased sticks working together. Not to say that it can't work, but it might be a crapshoot.
I wonder how long it will be until Steam Machine owners start selling their original sticks to other Steam Machine owners, and then buying a matched pair for themselves.
You can if you buy the same spec. People often don't read the notes on what they buy, I think that's the problem.
Even modules sold under the same model number may use chips from a different manufacturer, or have a different PCB layout. These differences can make some modules incompatible with otherwise seemingly identical modules.
Hmm I thought the fine print listed the chip info.
Its been a while since I build my PC.