How similar does memory have to be to over clock

[scottyp123]

At the moment I've got 16GB (2x8) of DDR4, the make is crucial and was bought a couple of years ago. the speed is 2133MHz and I've set the XMP profile in the bios and its reporting a speed of 3000MHz.

I now want to get another 16GB but not sure of which to get, is there any advantage to buying a faster memory if I'm overclocking it or will it still only clock to the 3000MHz of the other two sticks anyway using XMP.

Also how accurate do the model numbers have to be to work properly, the ones I've got have one letter difference to the ones I can get in the model number, nearly identical but one has a C in the number and the other a D, This is what I want to get.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMK16GX4M2D3000C1...

Cheers.

[The_Jackal]

If I was you I'd match it exactly.
Sell what you have and buy 32Gb matching if you have to.
You could be setting yourself up for a world of pain troubleshooting niggling issues.

I could tell you what you want to hear and say it will work in some way, and it probably will, but you are setting yourself up with a weak link in the chain.

[deckster]

All your RAM will run at the same speed, i.e. at the speed of the slowest stick.

As above there is an argument for ditching the whole lot and buying fresh, but realistically you're hugely unlikely to see any issues with non-matching RAM other than not getting the absolutely best performance (which, outside of benchmarks, is going to make bugger all real-world difference anyway).

[scottyp123]

Cheers, I've mixed and matched RAM befre and never had a problem but this is the first time I've tried overclocking it. I was wondering if XMP would still work if they are slightly different.