4 RAM sticks will make my system slowere?

[Fallap]

I was talking with a friend of mine today, about my future build-my-self gaming PC.

I said I was gonna buy 4GB (4x1024)Crucial Ballistix Dual Channel 2048MB PC8500 DDR2 1066MHz Memory (2 x 1024MB) http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3116812&Sku=C19-6012 (Your welcome to come with better RAM alternatives, as long as theyr found on that side )

He then told me that having 4 sticks would cause my system to run slowere, can anyone in here confirm or disconfirm that statement?

Thanks in advance!

- Philip

 

[newtekie1]

It depends on the rest of your system, but yes sometimes having 4 sticks can cause the timings to be slower, and can hurt performance of the system vs. using 2 sticks.

 

[freeboy]

It does depend on the application, for instance are you doing Cad or vid rendering? Gaming Vista..?
For a new vista system used for gaming, that may be a tossup, get a testing freeware and see by adding two chips and doing side by side tests.. For xp gaming rigs commen thought and experince is two gigs are enough and four slows down performance. Is it all about software? No, but the apps that need big memory definately do recieve a benifit to their speed using more ram, rendering, cad etc.

What operating sys and application?

 

[Fallap]

Im gonna have:

Intel Duo E6850 3 GHZ
XFX 8800 GTX
Samsung Spinpoint T166

And Im gonna play on Vista
------------------------------------

Will it go slower then?

 

[freeboy]

what are you using it for? games? vista needs alot of memory, so it would be an easy check, first test at 2 giog and then at four.

 

[Fallap]

Games, games and yet more games

 

[freeboy]

tests.. try ati tool, on my sys runnig this gives me a real time frames per second in the corner.. it may work with your video card.. free from this sight too!/ test at two and at four.. or simply use a benchmarking program, also free...

 

[Fallap]

Okay¨, thanks for reply

 

[freeboy]

no problem, feel free to ask any ? these really are the best boards!

 

[Fallap]

I also forgot to add the mainboard il be uptaining:

Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6, X38, Socket-775, ATX, Silent Pipe, DDR2, 2xPCI-Ex(2.0)x16

 

[AsRock]

You wont get to use 4GIG if your using a 32bit OS. Not sure if you considered it or not with 4GIG you be better of with 64bit OS.

 

[Fallap]

So if I want 4GB of RAM, I need to get a 64bit Vista?

 

[Darknova]

It may do, but not enough to make a noticeable difference (except in benchmarks) over the increased memory available.

Just do it.

 

[freeboy]

even in vista? glad you said that , Ithought you could always use 4 gig in 32 or 64 bit vista, only over 4 to 8 in vista 64 bit.. very interesting thanks

 

[Darknova]

even in vista? glad you said that , Ithought you could always use 4 gig in 32 or 64 bit vista, only over 4 to 8 in vista 64 bit.. very interesting thanks

In a 32-bit OS the maximum register size if 4Gb, but all your add-on cards (Graphics included) take up space in that register. So you only get ACCESS to about 3.25-3.5Gb of your RAM.

In 64-bit you get access to all of it, and a theoretical maximum of 128Gb

 

[Fallap]

Okay, il buy 4GB and try my way forward (as we say in Denmark lol )

Im first gonna buy it after my birthday (29 november) But im the very impatient type

 

[EviloneX]

Well it can have a negative effect on your command rate . Usually you use 1T with 2 sticks of ram and 2T with 4 sticks, i generally found the bandwidth difference to be around 800MB\s+ between 1T and 2T command rates. Use Progs like Everest to see if theres really much of a difference.

 

[Darknova]

Well it can have a negative effect on your command rate . Usually you use 1T with 2 sticks of ram and 2T with 4 sticks, i generally found the bandwidth difference to be around 800MB\s+ between 1T and 2T command rates. Use Progs like Everest to see if theres really much of a difference.

The command rate doesn't have that much of an effect on DDR2. If you mean DDR then yes I would agree with you.

 

[VulkanBros]

.....hmmm I have a ASUS CROSSHAIR ROG mobo with 4 x 1 GB af mem
(Corsair XMS2 Xtreme Performance TwinX Matched 2 GB ( 2 x 1024 MB ) DDR II − 800 MHz / PC2−6400C4 − CL4 − 2.1 V) ( se my system specs. )

The BIOS tells me I have 4096 MB memory - but Windows ( Vista Ultimate 32 bit DK )
is only reporting 3,5 GB memory....anyone knows why ??

And yes...I did a test like freeboy suggested....the system is a slight faster with only 2 GIG...
I dont understand that...is there a reasonable explanation for that behavior ???

 

[Darknova]

.....hmmm I have a ASUS CROSSHAIR ROG mobo with 4 x 1 GB af mem
(Corsair XMS2 Xtreme Performance TwinX Matched 2 GB ( 2 x 1024 MB ) DDR II − 800 MHz / PC2−6400C4 − CL4 − 2.1 V) ( se my system specs. )

The BIOS tells me I have 4096 MB memory - but Windows ( Vista Ultimate 32 bit DK )
is only reporting 3,5 GB memory....anyone knows why ??

And yes...I did a test like freeboy suggested....the system is a slight faster with only 2 GIG...
I dont understand that...is there a reasonable explanation for that behavior ???

That's been explained earlier in the thread mate

 

[VulkanBros]

That's been explained earlier in the thread mate

okay...fair enough....


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