Increasing RAM: 2 at a time or 1?
When I upgrade my Ram, must I still do it 2 sticks at a time or can I do 1 at a time now?
You do not have to upgrade 2 at one time, however, by upgrading with 2 sticks you take advantage of the dual channel capacity of the ram to make it work quicker. You essentially take the synergism into effect and would make 1+1=3 instead of 2 [the sum of their parts is equal to greater than the whole]. However, if your tower only came with one stick of 8 gb of ram, then it would be best to add either 1 or 3 sticks to again take the dual channel into effect. If it only came with one stick it would not even have to be another 8 gb stick if you are trying to save money and still increase speed. Unless you are playing games though more than 8 gb of ram is usually not needed. Even battlefield will run smoothly on a Nvidia 970 with only 8 gb of ram.