noob mem question

[badbadtz560]

I have 2x1gb ocz ddr2-800 ram in there and I realized that bf2 can lag quite a bit, especially w/ my dual lcds. After putting in 1gb of gskill ddr2800 ram in addition to it, bf2 runs smoothly, but my computer fails at the occt stability tests (bf2 also crashes occasionally b/c of the weird ram). I was OC-ing it at stock voltages to 430x7 and it was fine'n dandy w/ just the ocz. Is there any way I can keep this OC w/ two diff kinds of ram? or do i have to buy another matching ocz stick?

e6300
gigabyte ds3
7600gt
ocz 4-5-4-15 ddr800
gskill.. something.. whatever was on sale at newegg recently

 

[BillParrish]

ok, running 3 sticks you are not in dual channel mode and thats hurting you. It might be some of the stability problem. My DQ6 manual which is a lot like your DS3 does not even talk about having 3 sticks installed.

Because the board will read the ram and run at the slowest sticks setting I would recommend you get another stick of the gskill. At least then you will have 2 matched pairs. Probally easier to sell a pair than one stick if you ever have to, or if you get another computer anytime soon you could use a pair in there.

Without the Gskill part number I cant tell you much more. You need to look up the timings of both kinds of sticks and set your memory timings to the loosest of the 2 kinds. if ocz is 4 4 4 12 and gskill is 5 5 5 15 you would want to put 5 5 5 15 in the memory timings or leave it on auto.

Anyway it kinda depends on what other, if any uses there might be for the odd Gskill stick. Some other machine that might could use it, well then maybe another stick of OCZ, and later get the 4th so they all match but what to do with the Gskill. and mixing the OCZ and Gskill in the 3rd and 4th slots may or may not cause a problem.

 

[badbadtz560]

ah ok. so let me rephrase what you told me. You're tellin me that I should either stick in the other gskill or leave both out b/c 1 stick will casue stability issues - right?

I was hoping to leave 1gb in my parents' vista system and I'd get 3gb. I might as well get some cheap value ram for them and take both the gskill and ocz then and run it on 5-5-5-15. Does this sound like a good, working plan?

my gskill was 5-5-5-15 and ocz was 4-5-4-15.. so i'll match up both pairs, have 4gb in my system.. and run it at 5-5-5-15. Can someone confirm for me that this will work much better than 2oczs and 1 gskill?