Performance impact of filling up 4 DIMM slots in Z77 mainboard

[siddharthmukul007]

A friend of mine works a lot on editing and graphic designing.

His config are as follows.

Core i7 3770K
2X8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz RAM (Running in dual channel mode)
AS Rock Z77 Extreme 6 TB
Samsung 840 250GB SSD
3X WD Caviar Black 2TB
Nvidia Quadro 4000
Seasonic X Series 760W
Antec Kuhler H2O 620

Now the question is:

Will filling up the remaining 2 DIMM slots make any positive (apart from more available physical memory)or negative impact?

 

[alexoiu]

There are some methods to determine the physical memory usage and if he really needs the extra amount:
http://www.whiz-tech.com/blog/2012/01/04/how-to-check-ram-on-win7-vista-xp-2000/ .
The only negative impact would be that it will place an increased load on the CPU. But both board and CPU do support 32GB.
Here's a guide (a little bit old though) regarding upgrading memory:
http://forum.corsair.com/v3/attachment.php?s=88d7a58bf7d1559df26f8e0bcbe950df&attachmentid=6937&d=1275030443

 

[siddharthmukul007]

thanks for the guide...he indeed needs the extra amount of ram.

adobe production premier suite is a ram killer he says.

load on cpu?????
do you mean to say that his idle cpu usage might increase from 0 to 1% ?

 

[alexoiu]

The integrated memory controller usage would increase, therefore a higher temperature of the CPU (5-10 degrees).
But, if the RAMs are compatible and the CPU cooling is OK, there's nothing to worry.
Overclocking would be also negatively affected.
Adobe might be a RAM demanding application but before paying for something that I might not need, I would firstly check, just to make sure.

 

[siddharthmukul007]

ok...so apart from cpu temps will he notice any performance decrease in the cpu performance?
oc is not an issue since he is not a hardcore oc r.

and for that checking part....he double checked and said he indeed requires more physical memory.

his pc starts to slow down as more and more editing is done.this is due to his physical memory starting to fill up

 

[alexoiu]

No decrease in performance.
I've checked on the Corsair site. They don't list any 32GB kit compatible with the board:
http://www2.corsair.com/configurator/product_results.aspx?sc=us&id=4577499
I don't say that adding a similar 16 GB kit would not work. Just that Corsair does not guarantee it.
GSkill does have several kits: http://www.gskill.com/configurator2.php?pid=2&model=1534

 

[siddharthmukul007]

Best answer selected by siddharthmukul007.