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Upgrade decision - 1x4GB, 3x1GB ?

J

jnmunsey

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 16, 2006
Messages
337
I got a Dell Inspiron 580 w/ i3-540 CPU for a friend and it only came with 4GB DDR3.

He won't use the system for much more than general use online but I still would like him to have solid performance with minimal hard drive paging.

The max memory listed for the 580 is 8GB I believe, but it will accept 4GB DIMMs(I tried) so perhaps it is 16GB.

Question to you: 4GB or 6GB/7GB ?

If I do upgrade, I am considering getting one 4GB DIMM and mixing it with three of the existing 1GB DIMMs for 7GB total. It works and Windows 7 reports 7GB being used and CPU-Z says it is running in dual channel mode though not sure how it really works in that config.

Of course, it is a little cheaper and makes more sense to just add 2x2GB for a total of 6GB but that is 1GB less and may be pricier if he wants to upgrade to more down the road (doubtful though).

Curious about your thoughts. I'm probably going to stick with 4GB or go to 6GB but the 7GB option intrigues me.

Thanks
 
if you arent gaming or doing video editing/rendering, you dont need more then 4gb of ram. if you arent going to use it its really a waste of money and performance will suffer with what you are suggesting.

that motherboard only has 4 memory slots. running 4x1gb sticks is going to be faster then running 3x1gb +one 4gb stick because you will turn dual channel mode off by having miss-matched pairs.

the max memory supported is actually 8GB regardless of how many sticks you put in. it will only see 8gb.
 
ghost6303 said:
if you arent gaming or doing video editing/rendering, you dont need more then 4gb of ram. if you arent going to use it its really a waste of money and performance will suffer with what you are suggesting.

that motherboard only has 4 memory slots. running 4x1gb sticks is going to be faster then running 3x1gb +one 4gb stick because you will turn dual channel mode off by having miss-matched pairs.

the max memory supported is actually 8GB regardless of how many sticks you put in. it will only see 8gb.
Click to expand...

Actually I have successfuly installed and run (and Win 7 detected) all 12GB of RAM. I even ran passmark on the system and its memory score reflected this(total memory increases score).

Surprisingly while running that odd combo of 7GB of RAM CPUz reported Dual channel was running and memory benchmarks yielded performance scores equal to the original 4GB setup. That part I found unusual but it worked. Clearly not all the ram will work in dual channel mode, but perhaps only part of it. I dunno.

For now I think I am going with 6GB since he may need the extra as he occasionally does some big graphics work..
 
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