Upgrading ram, need help/opinion

[blackhydra866]

Hello all, i'm looking to finally upgrade the RAM in my gaming rig which is fairly out of date.

Currently i'm using 2 slots out of the 4 on my motherboard and each have a 1gig stick. Here's my dilemma though.. on newegg the motherboard (link) claims to hold 8gigs of memory maxed. However when i run sisoft sandra it tells me this:

4gigs? this might be because i'm running windows xp 32bit? when i get this RAM i'm going to upgrade to windows 7 64 bit.

also what i'm just wanting an opinion on, as far as buying this ram goes, is should i go with 2x2g sticks bringing me up to 6 gigs? i've heard that if you use all of your ram slots it can lead to problems..

lotta questions here but i hope this makes sense to somebody!

thanks in advance!

 

[Burn]

I would check Gigabyte's website and see if it shows anything for how much RAM it supports.

As far as using all the memory slots, it can cause problems but it's pretty unlikely (unless you are heavily overclocking, then you might have some issues). I use all my RAM slots along with a pretty decent overclock, and haven't had any problems.

Someone may correct me if I'm wrong about that though

 

[blackhydra866]

I don't overclock anything so it shouldn't be a problem i'll take a look at gigabyte's site later though.

 

[Slaymate]

Your using 2 x 1GB so in order to continue using your memory in dual-channel mode you can only add 2 more 1GB sticks. So that's why sandra is saying 4GB, it's just working with what you have already.

If you buy 4 sticks of 2GB memory you'll be okay. Here's the Memory Support list for your mobo
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/FileList/MemorySupport/motherboard_memory_ga-ep35-ds3l.pdf

The best thing you can do is to buy a 2x2GB set and sell your present memory, or buy another set of 2x1GB and use your old memory. But don't buy a 2x2GB set and use your 2x1GB set as it will disable dual-channel mode.

 

[blackhydra866]

Thank you very much for the help! I'll replace it with 2x2gb and stick my current ram into my computer I built from school last year as it only has 512mb of ram

 

[blackhydra866]

Oh one more thing this RAM would be compatible with my board right? Newegg.com - CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5 - Desktop Memory

 

[Slaymate]

That kit should work fine. I'm more prone to buy OCZ myself. These are only 2 or 3 dollars more and they have better timings. Just a suggestion. Newegg.com - OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ2P8004GK - Desktop Memory

These have even better timings but I've never tried PNY memory before.
Newegg.com - PNY XLR8 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model MD4096KD2-800-X4 - Desktop Memory