Ok, i plan on buying an extra 1gig of ram this week, but iv been told that you need to have one that is compatible. So i need help buying ram for my machine, i dont know which to get. I plan on spending no more then £160 on ram, so does anyone have any sugguestions on what to get? System Specs : Pentium Viiv 3.7ghz Duel Core. 1gig ram 7600GT - (soon to be updated for a 8800gt) 470gig harddrive space. Thanks guys.
If you're planning on adding the 1GB with your existing RAM, they should be identical. Same speed, same timings, same voltage, ideally same brand and model number. If not you may have problems. If you were to get something faster, it would only run as fast as your current memory. Now if you're planning on a whole new 2x1GB kit, we still need to know DDR or DDR2 at at the minimum.
[QUOTE="Phantsy16"]Ok, i plan on buying an extra 1gig of ram this week, but iv been told that you need to have one that is compatible. So i need help buying ram for my machine, i dont know which to get. I plan on spending no more then £160 on ram, so does anyone have any sugguestions on what to get? System Specs : Pentium Viiv 3.7ghz Duel Core. 1gig ram 7600GT - (soon to be updated for a 8800gt) 470gig harddrive space. Thanks guys. You can get a 1 gig stick of Corsair XMS2 for like £50, thats DDR667 C4 I think. *hunts down link*
EDIT: Gift ^_^ http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=143574
[QUOTE="_0V3RKI11_"][QUOTE="Phantsy16"]Ok, i plan on buying an extra 1gig of ram this week, but iv been told that you need to have one that is compatible. So i need help buying ram for my machine, i dont know which to get. I plan on spending no more then £160 on ram, so does anyone have any sugguestions on what to get? System Specs : Pentium Viiv 3.7ghz Duel Core. 1gig ram 7600GT - (soon to be updated for a 8800gt) 470gig harddrive space. Thanks guys. You can get a 1 gig stick of Corsair XMS2 for like £50, thats DDR667 C4 I think. *hunts down link*
EDIT: Gift ^_^ http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=143574
DDR667 C4 -4 -4 -12 Corsair XMS2. How can you tell if the RAM you found is even compatible with the mobo, let alone one another?!?
Ok i have used CPU-Z. General - Type DDR 2 Channels: Duel Slot 1: 512 - Swissbit - Max Brandwdith = PC2-4300 (266MHZ) Slot 2: Excatly the same as slot 1. Hope this helps
If you have the board I think you do its an MSI 945P chipset.
You should have 4 DIMMS on your board for ram. So you have 2 choices. You can go buy another set of 2 X 512 MB sticks. This is probably more risky though as filling 4 DIMMS with ram can sometimes lead to problems. This would be the cheaper way to go but higher risk of problems. Certainly don't discount this as an option though, I'm just leaning towards a safer choice.
If it were me, I personally would do this. Take out the 2 X 512 sticks you have now and order a matched pair of 2 X 1 GB sticks. All you need is something cheap but with a repuation for stability. Something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134046
Just for reference your board supports up to PC6400. I just quickly choose the ram above as an example, you can find cheaper sets of ram, just make sure you buy something that is between PC4300 and PC6400.
Just get you a 1GB stick of DDR2 533 and it should work with that board in dual channel. At least as far as recent Intel chipsets go, that is a is all you need for dual channel, Channel A to equal Channel B. So right now you have 1x512MB channel a + 1x512MB channel b. If you were to rearrange the 512 sticks so they are both in channel a, and then put the 1GB stick in channel b, you should have dual channel.
Here is a link to Intel's website describing how dual channel works on there chipsets (has worked like this for me for every board I have tried, but am sure some are more complicated.)
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