RAM Question

I

Iced_Bullet

New Member
Recently, I bought my new PC which I am very pleased with =]

I only have 2gb (2x1gb) of RAM and with Vista it might need to be upped soon by either 2gb or 4gb.

It says in the Mobo instructions that I have to have the 'Same size and type in DIMM 1 + 3' and the 'Same size and type in DIMM 2 + 4'. Does this mean I can have 1gb sticks in DIMM 1 + 3 and then 2gb sticks in DIMM 2 + 4?

Also, the current ones are these - http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=402849 800mhz CAS 4-4-4-12

Can you suggest others? I could only find Corsair 5-5-5-14 2gb 800mhz sticks on Ebuyer or SCAN of the same visual style (dunno if that matters) ... does this number difference matter?

Also, could you suggest (find) some more pleeeeaseeee =] Any price at the moment ...
 
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Bit of a loooonnng question, but all I can say is that RAM works best in matched pairs and without knowing your MOBO, I can't say whether you can have 6GB total for your board;)
 
The 1+3 slots are for the primary memory channel while the 2+4 slots are for the secondary. That's how the board is designed there. When mixing different sizes the largest or when mixing speeds was always placing those in the first slots or on the primary channel.

For seeing over 3gb of memory one thing to mention first however is the need for a 64bit version of Windows due to the 3gb barrier seen with the 32bit kernel. If you install 4gb of memory and run a 32bit edition Windows only reports some 3.125gb.

When adding more memory to a system the best advice anyone can give you is going usually with the same brand while the same type and timings are practically a must. If you are going to running a 64bit edition of Windows a pair of 2gb dimms one on each channel to replace the pair of 1gb dimms sees 4gb of ram.

Unless you are going to running CAD or another large ram intensive software anything more simply goes to waste being unused. While the new boards see 8gb and 16gb capacities Windows and most everything runs on far less.
 
PC eye said:
The 1+3 slots are for the primary memory channel while the 2+4 slots are for the secondary. That's how the board is designed there. When mixing different sizes the largest or when mixing speeds was always placing those in the first slots or on the primary channel.
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Hmmm, interesting.

PC eye said:
For seeing over 3gb of memory one thing to mention first however is the need for a 64bit version of Windows due to the 3gb barrier seen with the 32bit kernel. If you install 4gb of memory and run a 32bit edition Windows only reports some 3.125gb.
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I have 64bit Vista Premium, so that's fine. That is why I bought it in the first place, for the RAM upgrade facility.

PC eye said:
When adding more memory to a system the best advice anyone can give you is going usually with the same brand while the same type and timings are practically a must. If you are going to running a 64bit edition of Windows a pair of 2gb dimms one on each channel to replace the pair of 1gb dimms sees 4gb of ram.
Click to expand...

I was thinking of having 6gb (2x1gb + 2x2gb), I dont really want to scrap the 2x1gb sticks as they're only 1 week old :P

PC eye said:
Unless you are going to running CAD or another large ram intensive software anything more simply goes to waste being unused. While the new boards see 8gb and 16gb capacities Windows and most everything runs on far less.
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No, I do use photoshop and some student (not full industrial F1 type) CAD programs for college. Mainly I would like the upgrade for Vista (:mad:) games and video encoding ...

Would these work? £70 is a bit steep ... but then I paid £35 for 2gb so £70 fo 4gb seems fair when I thinik about it while I'm typing :p

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142433

Also, one of my mates said something about similar voltage required?! Does that mean anything?
 
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Now that's seeing some practical application for that amount of memory. I looked over both sets of memory and the pair of 2gb dimms is the exact except for the size of the dimms being 2gb rather then 1gb. I would take the pair of 1gb dimms and reinstall those one on the second slot for each channel to see a 3gb total on each rather then 2 on one and 4 on the other.

When first putting this build together a year I looked a pair of 2gb and also saw the initial price tags! Since then memory has come down quite a bit. But the next build will see both 32 and 64bit versions of Windows 7 when that's out since MS plans to dump the 32bit idea all together afterwards. I suffer a 3/4gb loss of ram for 4gb then.
 
PC eye said:
Now that's seeing some practical application for that amount of memory. I looked over both sets of memory and the pair of 2gb dimms is the exact except for the size of the dimms being 2gb rather then 1gb. I would take the pair of 1gb dimms and reinstall those one on the second slot for each channel to see a 3gb total on each rather then 2 on one and 4 on the other.
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In the mobo manual it says have the same type and size in DIMM 1 + 3 and same type and size in DIMM 2 + 4. And you're suggesting I put the same type and size in DIMM 1 + 2 and the same type and size in DIMM 3 + 4? Why's that?

Or are you saying put the 2gb sticks in DIMM 1 + 3 and the 1gb sticks in DIMM 2 + 3?
 
The best move is to simply upgrade from 2gb to 4gb by swapping the pair of 1gb dimms out to be replaced by the 2gb dimms. For running the smaller dimms along with the new pair you would see those in 2+4 being the second slot on each channel.

The memory is added up collectively on each channel to see 3gb on both channels for the 6gb total. You would be simply evenly distributing the amount. The ideal on the other hand is seeing dimms the exact same in size as well as speed, timings, and of course with the brand and type identical voltage setting.

The manual is making the standard recommendation for seeing all dimm slots populated with identical dimms. That insures the best system wide performance while not preventing a mismatch in size from working there since that was the only thing different between the pair you have now and the 4gb kit you are looking at.
 
PC eye said:
The best move is to simply upgrade from 2gb to 4gb by swapping the pair of 1gb dimms out to be replaced by the 2gb dimms. For running the smaller dimms along with the new pair you would see those in 2+4 being the second slot on each channel.

The memory is added up collectively on each channel to see 3gb on both channels for the 6gb total. You would be simply evenly distributing the amount. The ideal on the other hand is seeing dimms the exact same in size as well as speed, timings, and of course with the brand and type identical voltage setting.

The manual is making the standard recommendation for seeing all dimm slots populated with identical dimms. That insures the best system wide performance while not preventing a mismatch in size from working there since that was the only thing different between the pair you have now and the 4gb kit you are looking at.
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So ... you're saying it would produce better performance if I had 4gb in total DIMM 1 + 3, comapred to 6gb with the extra 1gb in DIMM 2+4? I can't see the logic, but then I'm no computer wizz. Also it seems a waste of £35 to me as I only built the PC on wednesday last week =[
 
I'm running Vista here with 2gb of performance memory with no lags. In fact Vista loads up faster then XP since the previous version is setup at the present time in a dual boot.

Boosting up from 2gb to see 4gb alone is actually sufficient and more then needed for most unless running CAD or some other large development or simply memory grabbing softwares. 6gb is a bit overkill as well as seeing two different sized dimms put into use rather then keeping all identical.

The ideal setup sees everything on both channels identical for the best overall performance. Simply replacing the pair of 1gb dimms with the new pair larger in size would see any adequate boost. Moving up from 2 to 4gb won't see any giant leap of performance note.

The move from 1 to 2gb is where you see a noticable difference in both XP and Vista with Windows running smoother in general. First running the RC1 beta release and then grabbing a copy of Vista when first out I still haven't found it to be any monster resource hog it's been made out to be. It's simply a newer larger version seeing more default processes.
 
yeah, I'd go along with that!! I also feel that 2GB DDRII is enough to run Vista and the people that say it's a resource hog are probably using a HEAVY AV,F/wall solution and running on low spec CPU's!!! ..... It's kinda like getting that new Porsce you always wanted and running it on a VW Beetle engine???
 
I did have a slight change of heart last night and just thought I will buy the same 2 x 1gb sticks on plonk them in the spare DIMM slots. 4gb should be enough if I'm idle at 800mb.
 
When putting this build together last fall I was looking right at a pair of 2gb performance dimms I still would have gone while running 32bit versions of Windows here. The initial prices seen were quite steep however ruling that out then.

Additional memory like going from 1gb to 2gb on either XP or Vista will immediately notice a gain there. But once you get to a certain amount the only gain is when you start running demanding softwares like CAD where the term memory intensive comes into play.

If you want to suffer a 3/4gb loss of ram out of 4gb simply replace the current memory with the larger pair. Eventually 64bit will become the main type of Windows being run but not for some time. Windows 7 will supposedly be the last by MS seeing a 32bit edition there. By the time the following version comes out you'll likely have already upgraded into a newer build.
 
You have to figure it will take several years since everything is still 32bit saturated. The software companies despite Vista being out for the last 1 1/2yrs. still don't seem to have much to offer in 64bit form. XP Pro64 was a flop seeing virtually no support along with being an infant in the 64bit arena.

Many now are simply grabbing a 64bit edition just to see 4gb or more tossed on a build without any pratical application for that amount of memory. Just because is the word on that it can see all 4gb in Windows. There's no super performance gain to be realized however.

The market place will determine when 64bit is in and 32bit is finally toast like 16bit was in a much shorter amount of time. 1.0/8bit then 2.0/8bit then 3.1/16bit and finally 95/16bit with OSR2 added later then saw 98+98SE/32bit arrive and say good bye there to 16bit.
 
XP Pro64 was an introduction but saw little support since all software companies were simply making too much profit with 32bit at the time to let's say "retool" for the 64bit architecture. Between that time and now with Vista seeing more then one 64bit editiion you are now starting to see 64bit driver support for most hardwares like video and sound cards the leading sellers.

There's no tremendous difficulty since the 64bit concept has been around for decades. The market place however is the motivator for development. Once more and more people are demanding and buying 64bit programs the market is then driven to see more 64bit products come about.
 
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