Buying Another Stick

[Ov3rKiLL]

Hey All,

I just have a quick question in reference to a stick of ram that I want to buy.

I currently have a DX58SO board which you can see here :
http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/motherboards/dx58so/dx58so-overview.htm

Im looking to get the same type of ram that I currently have, which is OCZ Gold PC10666 DDR3. I have 3 separate sticks of 1GB each on the blue slots on the mobo, as you can see on the link above. My question is if I were to buy this one which is the same style but its a 4GB module and insert it into the last black slot that is available, would it work just fine? as long as I install windows 64 bit.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...-details.asp?EdpNo=6101232&csid=ITD&body=MAIN

 

[novadaemon]

you risk the computer having issues communicating with the memory and odds are you are going to throw it from triple channel mode down to single channel mode. Not worth it. you need to just save up the extra $12 and get something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0227477&cm_re=6gb_ddr3-_-20-227-477-_-Product

that'll fill up all your slots, it SHOULD let you keep triple channel mode even though it is 2-1-2-1-21 and will give you 9gb of ram total.

 

[E4g1e]

you risk the computer having issues communicating with the memory and odds are you are going to throw it from triple channel mode down to single channel mode. Not worth it. you need to just save up the extra $12 and get something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0227477&cm_re=6gb_ddr3-_-20-227-477-_-Product

that'll fill up all your slots, it SHOULD let you keep triple channel mode even though it is 2-1-2-1-21 and will give you 9gb of ram total.

Actually, the i7 CPUs support what's called a Flex memory controller mode in which you can have triple-channel with four identical sticks of RAM installed. What happens here is that the memory controller channel with the least amount of RAM installed would serve as the basis for triple-channel (in this case, 3 x 1GB, or 3GB, according to the OP's current configuration) while the added 1GB would then be mapped to single-channel.

With that said, I would not recommend buying the additional 1GB module because its current street price is now almost as high as a 2GB stick of RAM. Therefore, I'd just replace the three 1GB sticks completely with three identical 2GB modules (or one 6GB kit) unless the OP is still running only 32-bit Windows for some reason.

 

[Ov3rKiLL]

awesome guys thanks for the help, im really glad I posted before I bought it. Im just going to replace all 3 of them with the modules that are on the link from new egg that way I can just have 6 GB, and on top of that it would run faster due to the fact that it would be 1600 instead of 1333 mhz. One more question if I were to get those 3 modules from newegg, could I buy a seperate 2GB module of the same speed to make it 8 GB in total running at the same speed? or would that throw off the whole channel thing because of that last black slot?

 

[E4g1e]

awesome guys thanks for the help, im really glad I posted before I bought it. Im just going to replace all 3 of them with the modules that are on the link from new egg that way I can just have 6 GB, and on top of that it would run faster due to the fact that it would be 1600 instead of 1333 mhz. One more question if I were to get those 3 modules from newegg, could I buy a seperate 2GB module of the same speed to make it 8 GB in total running at the same speed? or would that throw off the whole channel thing because of that last black slot?

Adding the fourth 2GB stick to make the total 8GB would still force the Flex memory controller mode: In this case, the fourth 2GB stick would run in single-channel mode while the original 6GB would run in triple-channel mode.

 

[Ov3rKiLL]

ah okay perfect, thanks for the feedback. If you were in my situation what would you do?

 

[Spooony]

There's a performance difference when going to 2gb dimms from 1gb dimms. Buy a kit with 2gb dimms. OCZ have a lot of issues especially with Intel boards and cpus

 

[novadaemon]

Actually, the i7 CPUs support what's called a Flex memory controller mode in which you can have triple-channel with four identical sticks of RAM installed. What happens here is that the memory controller channel with the least amount of RAM installed would serve as the basis for triple-channel (in this case, 3 x 1GB, or 3GB, according to the OP's current configuration) while the added 1GB would then be mapped to single-channel.

With that said, I would not recommend buying the additional 1GB module because its current street price is now almost as high as a 2GB stick of RAM. Therefore, I'd just replace the three 1GB sticks completely with three identical 2GB modules (or one 6GB kit) unless the OP is still running only 32-bit Windows for some reason.

Well originally the OP was trying to add a single 4gb stick to a 1+1+1 config. The higher density of the 4gb chip's modules could have posed compatibility problems.

Between the possibility of the 1gb sticks being single sided and the 4gb stick being double sided, and with the density of the memory IC's being different I don't know if the memory controller would have liked it even if it did work.

Also, I'm an idiot for not looking at the OP's board because I just assumed he had 6 slots. So yeah, I'd replace all 3 sticks with a 6gb kit.

 

[Ov3rKiLL]

My apologies for reviving this thread, but I have a small concern. I have recently bought from the newegg site a 6gb kit of ram, which is the one found on the link above. When I opened the computer yesterday to replace the old ones I found that instead of having each stick of ram in the 3 blue sockets and having the black one empty, I had 2 sticks in blue sockets and the 3rd stick in the black socket, leaving me with an empty blue socket. Does that mean that for the past few months I havent had the ram running at triple channel? Also if im correct at this moment what I should do with the new sticks is put them in all of the blue slots and leave the black slot vacant right? That way I make sure that they are all running same speed.