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Vista - 4x1GB or 2x2GB

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darkside1016

darkside1016

Member
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Joined
Aug 24, 2005
Yeah... Vista Ultimate just arrived at my door, and I am clueless as to what RAM to buy now.

I want to get my system up and rolling soon, however I don't want to waste money.

Basically I'm going for this end result:

E6600 - Have it
DFI ICFX-3200 T2R/G - Have it
CLT-M2I 92mm TEC CPU Cooler - Have it
Custom Modded ATI X1800XT 512mb @ 670gpu :attn: - Have it.
Raptor - 3 Operating systems in order of prority - Vista, XP, Slackware. - Have it.
2 x 320GB NCQ SATA3.0 Seagate .10's in RAID0 - Ordered
FSP Fortron 550W on 1000VAC 700W OPTI-UPS - Have it.

So... with this setup would it be a better idea to go with four sticks of 1GB each, Micron D9GMH IC's :D.

Or... do I go with two sticks of 2GB each ( with higher latency's of course... not so good when you're oc'ing a conroe ) ram that is either out now, or fairly soon.

Expert Opinions Appreciated.
 
I believe go with the 2x2GB. it will leave you some room for future upgrading. I mean if you are into that type of thing ofcourse. LOL. :burn:
 
Rule of thumb is the fewer the better. One bad stick is all it takes to kill an overclock, so by going with 4, you've effectively increased your chances of getting a bad stick by 100%.

Going with 2 also allows for more to be added later (I know, sounds contradictory) in case you want to go for 4GB+.
 
I think it's to early to be buying the 2 x 2GB. Why do you need the 4GB of memory? If you are going to be OCing the 2 x 1GB kits would be much better. The E6600 rig in my sig has 4GB and that's only because I run it at stock.
 
Also, you need to take into account that if you are using 32 bit Vista, you are technically only going to have 3017 MB of physical ram because of the 32bit OS limitation. You will need a 64 bit version of Vista to fully take advantage of all 4 gigs.

Dom
 
lekyiscool said:
mm with vista it can take 2gb modules

xp 32bit can only take 1gb modules correct?
Click to expand...

actually because of 32 bit addressing a 32 os can only recognize 4096 bits for addresses. However because the computer uses addresses for things other than ram your 32 bit os comp can only recognize about 3.5 gigs of ram. However 64 bit os's can now address up to 128 gb instead of the 4 capability of 32 bit os's. Hope that clears some of it up.

As per your question i am not sure if xp32 would recognize one 2 gig module. I dont have any experience with that and though it theoretically should work sometimes the world doesnt work that way.
 
As per your question i am not sure if xp32 would recognize one 2 gig module. I dont have any experience with that and though it theoretically should work sometimes the world doesnt work that way.
Click to expand...

yea it should but i always thought it didint recognize the 2gb moudles since i have never heard or seen anyone use them
 
you are better off using 2x2gb sticks of ram as it will use less address space on the board and if you get matched pairs you will have better performance. its easier for the board to manage 2 slots than 4. i have seen that using 4 sticks brings down your oc.
 
if you do something in xp that requires more than 2gb than I can understand wanting 4gb in vista, but getting 4bb just because you have vista is kinda senseless since it runs just fine on 2gb. especially when there's no need for vista unless areo has some kind of hidden function. DX10 is the only use and well there's a game or 2 out....
 
If your going for overclock, i'd do 2x 1gb of Micron D9 if you can get it, going 4x 1 gb would increase your chances of a poorer OC since all sticks are not created equal, even of the same manufacturer/chip

2x 2gb modules... i've only seen Kingston 4 gb kits lately... and vety spendy for what they are... i'd hold off until the prices come down on them.


~ Gos
 
The other thing to consider is that an e6600 probably won't be Ram-limited with the 9x multi, so I'm not sure whether the 2 vs 4 stick issue even matters. Even DDR-800 Ram at stock speed would give 3.6GHz which is about as much as you can expect from a good e6600 on air. The weak link would probably be the motherboard and how it handles the Ram rather than the Ram itself.
 
I would probably go with 2x2GB sticks. Boards don't do well with four modules in terms of OC speeds in my experience.

I've got the same mobo and proc as you. It's a good combo for Vista when you've got 4GB of RAM (I've got 4x1GB sticks and I can't even run it 10MHz over spec--OCZ PC2-7200 Platinum).
 
Wow I guess my thread is still active :]

Good news on the OC, I'm running at 3 Ghz right now for burn-in.

I tried prime95 at 3.5Ghz ( 390fsb ) but second core locked up and I was getting minor stability issues.

I'm giving it some time and gradually OC'ing as to not damage the hardware.

On another note, I will be buying 4GB, but it's not required right now so I'm sticking with my micron d9's untill some dx10 games start releasing.

Anyone know of any IC's that will be built on 2GB modules?

I was looking up micron and found some of them are in production and a few are still in sampling. i.e. MT16HTS25664HY-667 ( high binned ddr800 CL5 i think )
 
dominick32 said:
Also, you need to take into account that if you are using 32 bit Vista, you are technically only going to have 3017 MB of physical ram because of the 32bit OS limitation. You will need a 64 bit version of Vista to fully take advantage of all 4 gigs.

Dom
Click to expand...

This is also directed at IAmMoen.

Linux x86 High Memory support said:
Code Listing 3.7: Enabling high memory support on x86

Due to limitations in the 32-bit address space of the x86 architecture, a kernel with default configuration can only support up to 896mb RAM. If your system has more memory, only the first 896mb will be visible, unless you enable high memory support.

Processor type and features --->
High Memory Support --->
(X) 4GB
( ) 64GB
Choose the 4GB option, unless your system has more than 4GB of RAM.
Click to expand...

All this can be supported in a 32-bit OS. The hardware limitation is easily bypassed by software. You'll have to ask a Microsoft tech if Vista will let you use 4GB or 64GB. Considering that Linux has had this for years, I doubt very much that Microsoft has neglected to do the same thing.
 
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