Correct 4GB ram for Gigabyte GA-G41-combo Motherboard??

That board has 2 pairs of DIMM sockets, DDR2 and DDR3 as you are probably aware. But you can't use both DDR2 and DDR3 at the same time. If this is the memory you bought, it should work in the pair of DDR3 slots: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145315

The motherboard's specs for the RAM allow for:

DDR3:

2 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 8 GB of system memory
Support for DDR3 1333(O.C.)/1066/800 MHz memory modules

-OR-

DDR2:

2 x 1.8V DDR2 DIMM sockets supporting up to 8 GB of system memory
Support for DDR2 1066(O.C.)/800/667 MHz memory modules

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4213#sp

But remember to take out the sticks in the other pair of DIMM sockets first so you are only using DDR2 or DDR3.

The MB will handle taking the RAM to 1333 MHZ.

OK. I thought since you were going to get the Q9650, you'd have to update the BIOS probably anyway. That would allow for the faster FSB and make the 1333mhz a more practical solution. If I remember from my Q9550, that made the FSB 1333 mhz.

Thanks, my other PC sitting next to me also has the Arc Mini R2. I liked it so well for my mATX MB system, that I bought its ATX brother for the machine in my sig.
Fractal Design makes excellent cases. Well thought out. Not much on bling, but that suits me just fine ;-)

As to the faster RAM working with the slower FSB, that isn't an issue. The RAM is simply RATED for faster speeds. It will downclock to whatever speed the FSB/motherboard demands. That memory should be fine in the DDR3 DIMM slots as long as the DDR2 slots are NOT populated at the same time.

Where did you read that the E5500 has a memory limitation? The processor doesn't limit memory size, the MB and chipset does.
That motherboard supports "2 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 8 GB of system memory".

Make note of any changes you might have made in BIOS and then do the BIOS reset to factory new. (Page 19 in your MB manual)
After that, you will have to reset time/date and any changes you might have made to the BIOS.... like which HDD is the boot drive, SATA mode being IDE or AHCI, etc.

Hello,

My apologies for digging up this old Thread here, but I just found it via search engine, and I presume others may look it up like that just as well, which is why I'd like to have this piece of information standing here for others to find:

The Gigabyte specifications are wrong, or misleading/incomplete at best...

Please see the [Intel G4x chipset specifications], page 529. There you will find this:

13.2.2 System Memory Technology Supported

The (G)MCH supports the following DDR2 and DDR3 Data Transfer Rates, DIMM
Modules, and DRAM Device Technologies:

• ■DDR2 Data Transfer Rates: 667 (PC2-5300) and 800 (PC2-6400)
  ■DDR3 Data Transfer Rates: 800 (PC3-6400) and 1066 (PC3-8500)
  ■DDR2 DIMM Modules:
  Raw Card C - Single Sided x16 un-buffered non-ECC
  Raw Card D - Single Sided x8 un-buffered non-ECC
  Raw Card E - Double Sided x8 un-buffered non-ECC
  ■DDR3 DIMM Modules:
  Raw Card A - Single Sided x8 un-buffered non-ECC
  Raw Card B - Double Sided x8 un-buffered non-ECC
  Raw Card C - Single Sided x16 un-buffered non-ECC
  Raw Card F - Double Sided x16 un-buffered non-ECC
  ■DDR2 DRAM Device Technology: 512-Mb, 1-Gb, and 2-Gb
  ■DDR3 DRAM Device Technology: 512-Mb and 1-Gb

Click to expand...

What this means is that the maximum DDR-III chip density lies at 1Gbit, whereas the maximum DDR-II chip density is twice that. If you look at the supported DDR-III modules you'll see that we can have at most 16 DRAM devices (=chips) per module in either a single- or double-sided configuration. Since G41 can only drive one DDR-III module per channel, we have at most 16 devices × 1Gbit = 16Gbit = 2GB per module and 4GB per G41 board. You can NOT use 4GB+ DDR-III modules, because you'd need either 32 DRAM devices at 1Gbit density or 16 devices at 2Gbit density, both of which are not supported by the chipset.

Solution: Use single-sided 16-chip DDR-II. Then you can have 2 modules at 16 × 2Gbit = 32Gbit = 4GB per module, 8GB per system.

At first I thought I have to get you single-sided DDR-II memory modules with 16 chips on one side. I was just about to post that I couldn't find any, and that this configuration is extremely unusual. Turns out I was just being stupid.

I misunderstood how memory module organization really works, but thanks to [this ixbtlabs article] I get it now. The "x16" didn't refer to 16 chips, but rather a 16-bit interface of each individual chip. So 4×16 chips would make one 64-bit rank, and you can have more than one rank as well. Ok, back to the drawing board, cause we can use very common modules after all:

The spec says that we can use double-sided x8 memory, right? 8-Bits per chip. To fill one rank, we need 8 chips: 8×8=64 bits, which assembles a full external interface width. But according to the table on page 529 of the spec sheet, we can have two physical ranks. So we can have a total of 16 chips, each with an 8-bit interface. With chips 2Gbit large, that's 16 chips × 2Gbit / 8 = 4GByte!

Yeah, so please disregard my first suggestion and also my statements about chip count. It's all plain wrong.

Instead, what you wanna use is double-sided, dual-rank 4GB DDR-II with 8 chips per side or single-sided, dual-rank with 16 chips on just one side. That's pretty standard stuff, like Crucials CT1685248 kit, or Kingstons KVR800D2N6K2/8G for instance.

And about speed... Please watch your hard drive LED. If it becomes very active when your memory is near-full, the system is swapping, which means terrible slowdowns even if you have a SSD drive. In such cases, the speed gain would be tremendous, considering how fast DRAM is in comparison to disks.

When not swapping (so when only RAM is being used), DDR-II should be a tiny bit slower than your DDR-III due to slightly lower bandwidth. Typically, you won't notice that, ever, because this difference is rather insignificant.

That does still leave the price issue. [Mushkin Silverline Stiletto] is slightly cheaper, but not exactly a steal either. The Samsung module you linked to on eBay should work though, because it's single-sided and has devices/chips with 8-bit width in two ranks. Should be fine!