Help understanding what memory I need to get

grifftech

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Aug 13, 2009
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It's been a VERRY long time since I have last built a PC and things have changed immensely. I am looking at a Core i7-950 CPU with a GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard


What I am trying to understand is what kind of memory to get, I am pretty sure it is DDR3, but I have no idea what speed to get and why? What determines the approriate speed memory to get?

Thanks for any help.

Chris
 
X58 motherboards feature triple channel memory.. So, a three or six stick memory kit will benefit you more compared to any other configuration.. Speed and quantity will depend upon your usage.. The baseline memory speed is at 1333 MHz.. Memory at speeds more than that will give you extra headroom for overclocking your CPU.. As for quantity, 6GB of ram (3 sticks of 2GB each) is the usual setup.. If your work or usage demands more, you can always get more.. The maximum any X58 motherboard supports is 24GB of memory..