Ram upgrade help

[papercut444]

Hello,

I currently own this exact piece of ram.

OCZ GOLD EL PC4000 1GB 2X512MB DDR500 CL2-2-2-8 184PIN DIMM DUAL CHANNEL MEMORY KIT W/ RAMSINK

I'm wanting to upgrade my ram to 1.5 gigs so I can play battlefield 2 on full settings (since my vid card isn't designed for bf2) - I'm wondering if I can buy another set of these and just put one stick of them into my computer. My brother has the exact same computer as me, and he would have the other stick - making both of us have 1.5 gigs.

Will this interfere with anything? When I buy it, can I just put it in, then all of a sudden I have 1.5 gigs? - or will that mess up the dual channel going on. How should I upgrade my ram?

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks

 

[fishmahn]

Information would allow us to hazard a response... Specifically (but not limited to) what mobo do you have? Throw in your graphics card and CPU stats as well, and you may get other suggestions.

See, some mobos can do dual channel with 3 sticks, some can't (actually most can't). Some can't do dual channel at all so it doesn't matter if you have 3 sticks or not.

Mike.

<font color=blue>Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside the dog its too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx</font color=blue>

 

[papercut444]

Here is the exact link to the ram

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=14140&vpn=OCZ5001024ELDCGEVX-K&manufacture=OCZ Technology

Here's my other specs as well:

DFI LANPARTY UT NF4 ULTRA-D MOTHERBOARD
ATI X850 XT PE PCI-E VIDEO CARD
AMD 3500+ CLAWHAMMER CPU

 

[fishmahn]

nForce4 needs 2 or 4 DIMMS to do dual channel. Your idea will work, but you'll lose dual channel.

You could buy a 2x256 kit to get your extra .5gig, but I think it would be better to just get another kit for each PC making 2gig per. You get to keep your dual channel, and in a year or so when more games/programs need >1gig you'll be all set.

Another option is to buy a 2 gig kit (2x1gig) and put it in one PC and the 4x512 in the other.

Mike.

<font color=blue>Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside the dog its too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx</font color=blue>

 

[papercut444]

Awesome man, I think I'll just buy 2 more kits - thanks a lot, help was definitely appreciated!!

 

[fishmahn]

Didn't notice you're CPU is a clawhammer. It'll still work, but you may have to lower your memory speed to 166 with the extra RAM. That won't hurt performance much, about 1% from the benchmarks I've seen, but its still something.

I'm not well-versed in the details (hopefully someone who is will post and clarify/correct me) but the clawhammer's memory controller is sensitive and with more than 4 banks of ram (most 512MB DIMM's are dual-bank IIRC), the mobo drops the RAM speed a notch. Sometimes you can bump it back up in bios and it'll work, sometimes it won't.

Mike.

<font color=blue>Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside the dog its too dark to read.
-- Groucho Marx</font color=blue>