Dell Studio XPS 9000 - Upgrade from 8GB Dual to 12GB Tri-Channel?

[aLiskov]

I was just wondering if of you guys knew if you could upgrade the XPS 9000 to a 12GB of tripple eventually. Dell is offering the upgrade(8 initial) for $160 @ configuration. I know that I can get 4 Gigs or ram much cheaper. I also know that the motherboard in XPS 9000 is Intel X58 chip based, and actually has 6 240-pin slots. In other words, if you order the computer with 8GB, which is as offered, you're getting 4x2, and 2 empty. So my question basically is:

If I buy it at 8GB or ram and eventually upgrade, would that be considered tripple channel? Because it's gonna have 6x2 and I believe, since the mobo supports tripple channel memory, it would just start using it as such, which I hope will increase my perfomance on the i7 920, which im most likely gonna oc.

**EDIT**

Another quick fact though ... I read somewhere that your mobo and the bandwidth is maximized when all the memory slots are filled, which is basically the reason why HP and Asus decided to go 9GB with their i7 920(3x2 + 1x3). That's basically another reason I wanted to fill all of my slots.

**

I read a couple of posts, but they didn't explain it clearly and I'm not a whiz when it comes to mobos and new memory technology, so please help!

Thank you all.

 

[t2002]

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but I have a similar question. I'm also considering Dell's XPS 9000. The basic bundle comes with:

6GB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs

For $60 extra, I can "upgrade" to:

8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 4 DIMMs

Which one of these will perform better? 6GB Tri-Channel or 8GB Dual Channel?

Which will be easier to upgrade? I'm assuming the 8GB since you can just add 2x2 to the remaining slots? Is it, as aLiskov pointed out, going to be tripple channel when it is upgraded to 6x2?

In case it helps, this is what I typically do on the computer: Listen to iTunes, have 2-3 browsers open with dozens of tags open, have photoshop open, and a bunch of other little apps open like video chat, skype, Tweetdeck, etc.

Sorry if these are dumb questions, but I know nothing about computers and this is extremely confusing for me.