Is using up all RAM slots bad?

SnoopSanders

SnoopSanders

New Member
I just wanted to know if it would be bad for performance to have all of my RAM slots filled (4). I heard my friend talking to me about one time and he said that it could affect performance. Is this true?
 
It can effect performance, positively :)

The more RAM the better.

In some cases, though.. I've heard of people using 4 sticks of RAM and their board disabling dual channel.. but I've never actually seen it.

There is a limit.. only use the amount of RAM your OS will read.. don't stick 4GB of RAM in your PC if you use 32bit XP, for example.
 
Thanks, I currently have 512mb of memory (2x128mb + 1x256) and I wanted to buy an extra gig of RAM and that would fill up all the slots. I don't know that much about dual channel though, I have a dell that is about 3 years old (Dimension 4600) and I'm not even really sure if I have dual channel. But I think I should be fine.
 
Check your mobo specifications. Some mobos won't take more than a certain amount of RAM and some RAM configurations are not as good as others. Just make sure you're putting the right sized RAM in the right slots. The most probable configuration would be to put the Gig and the 256 in channels A1 and A2 respectively and then the two 128s in channel B slots.
 
I have heard that putting RAM ina ll the slots will downclock the sped. I have an DDR400 512 + 256 and they run at DR333 (only 2 slots on mobo)
 
Some motherboards will run at slower speeds, others will drop the timing down. However, the difference is rather minuscule. I hear about 5% decrease in performance.

It's all the 1T 2T settings. You can find your current timing using CPUz. I realized recently mine was running at 2T and so I changed it to 1T. Honestly, I see no real difference.
 
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