Currently, I have Two 1GB Corsair DDR2 800 Ram and they are running in dual channel. I am thinking to upgrade to 4GB but then I don't know if all the 4 ram will run in dual channel. What should I buy in order to run in dual channel(Faster, right) ? The other 2GB needed to be same brand, frequency,latency as the corsair or I can buy different brand?
Currently, I have Two 1GB Corsair DDR2 800 Ram and they are running in dual channel. I am thinking to upgrade to 4GB but then I don't know if all the 4 ram will run in dual channel. What should I buy in order to run in dual channel(Faster, right) ? The other 2GB needed to be same brand, frequency,latency as the corsair or I can buy different brand?
Ideally, all sticks should have same frequency, latency, and rated voltage. But if not, it'll still run, and in dual channel. The slower ram will just drag down the faster ones to the lower speed.
The other 2gb need to be in 2x1gb sticks, not a single 2gb stick, in order to run all in dual channel.
You would need 2 sticks preferably of the same speed as what you have now as dagger said. The flexibility that you have depends largely on your chipset.
Oh ya, I got a last question. I am still using XP at the moment, is 4GB enough for Vista? I am planning to upgrade to Vista when I feel want to. Should I get more than 4GB of ram?
Message edited by ahtze on 06-15-2008 at 01:46:38 AM
The sticks only need to be the same in the same bank. The reason for getting all of them the same speed and timing is so that no sticks are under clocked or are set with looser timings. So I agree yes.
Vista 32 will only see ~3MB the same as XP 32. Four gig is more than enough for Vista 64 unless you are doing RAM intensive tasks.
Message edited by Zorg on 06-15-2008 at 03:01:51 AM
I should say Vista 32 will see all 4G as of SP1, I think. This is because of all the people wondering where the 4th gig went. Although it will see all 4G it will only be able to address/use ~3G.
Message edited by Zorg on 06-15-2008 at 06:53:08 AM