SeeTheFuzz
Dabadger84
What are the rest of your system specs? Some motherboards perform worse or better with 4 sticks vs 2, depending on the way the RAM interface is configured on the given motherboard/chipset setup.
As a for instance, my motherboard in particular prefers 4-sticks being installed - The RAM will OC better & there's less "noise" in the power & information systems with all DIMMs populated, that sort of layout is called T-Topology. Most of the newer motherboards have Daisy-Chain style RAM configurations, meaning it will clock/perform better with only 2 DIMMs installed - which is why the eVGA Dark series only has 2 slots, there can't be any noise from 2 empty slots if there are only 2 slots :-P
If you can list your CPU, Motherboard, and any other information you want to share about the system, that would help figure out what the better options are for you.
Most likely, upgrading to 4 sticks is going to be the better/cheaper option, unless the 2x16GB kit is a better price/performance ratio & you have someone willing to buy your current RAM off you.
I'm running a Ryzen 3 3700X with an ASUS ROG Strix X570-E. The information you gave here is SUPER helpful, so thanks for giving me that bit of knowledge. Definitely would love your opinions on 2 or 4 sticks for my setup.
I think almost all X570 motherboards are Daisy Chain - having said that, the difference only really effects memory OCing - so if you're planning to just plug & play with the RAM, enable XMP & go, it shouldn't make a huge difference.
But, if you want my opinion, I would try to find someone to buy your current RAM kit, and then upgrade to a 2 x 16GB kit setup.
Other than the OCing issues you may run in to trying to run 4 DIMMs on a D-C configuration motherboard (which really only happens when you're pushing past 4200MHz if I recall Buildzoid's guide about the stuff correctly), there are other downsides to running 4 sticks. A LOT of motherboards program the XMP timings incorrectly when it comes to secondary timings, when you have 2 of the same kit in a 4x stick configuration - in fact, my motherboard did this, I had to manually set a few timings to fix some odd behaviors & occasional BSODs when running a memory OC. What happened was, the timings it needed to be at were "out of range" for what the BIOS could set, I had to manually input the lower of the two (it was a timing where it's 2 that are tied together, _S & _L, and the _L was too high of a number for the motherboard to auto - but fixing the _S number, which I could input, made the _L go to what it should be because it's always double).
Random things like that happen a lot more the more outside of norms you go with configurations. So sticking with a 2 stick kit or a kit that is 4-sticks all together sold together etc, is best.
So TLDR: I would go with the 2x16 Kit myself, especially if you can find someone interested in purchasing your current RAM once you get the new kit.
Looked it up real quick & your motherboard is definitely a Daisy-Chain style memory layout, so 2 DIMMs would be better than 4 DIMMs, especially if you plan to fiddle with & OC your RAM.
Oh, lastly, pro-tip, make sure you backup your Windows before messing with RAM OCing if you do, having a bad memory configuration in terms of timings etc can actually corrupt your Windows :-D I learned that the hard way lel