Ram Speed Question

[Verrak]

My computers 2 years old and recently one of my ram chips went bad. I am currently using now just 1 MB. My motherboard can hold 8MB, so i plan on maxing her out.

My question is what speed to buy to get the best benefit?

This is my computer specs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227016

If anyone wants to recommend exactly what I should buy that would help to

 

[Ghan]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231151

That is probably what you want. However, a word of caution. I believe that your OS needs to be 64 bit in order to support that much RAM. 32 bit OSs can only go up to 4 GB.

 

[Verrak]

Interesting...I googled it and came across this article.

http://www.vistaclues.com/reader-question-maximum-memory-in-32-bit-windows-vista/

So if i am reading this right, i might end up with 2.5, or 3?

Running 32 bit ultimate btw

Another question, would my system handle a 64 bit OS? what the requirements?

 

[Samuraid]

Interesting...I googled it and came across this article.

http://www.vistaclues.com/reader-question-maximum-memory-in-32-bit-windows-vista/

So if i am reading this right, i might end up with 2.5, or 3?

Running 32 bit ultimate btw

Another question, would my system handle a 64 bit OS? what the requirements?

You would end up with less than 4GB of RAM addressable by the operating system.

And yes, your system would support a 64-bit operating system. Whether or not you really need so much RAM is another question. If you are gaming and generally multitasking the usual set of applications, you will likely never even reach a 4GB maximum.

If you are doing 3D graphics, large-scale audio and music software, databases, virtual machines, or something similar then 8GB would be a lot more useful.

 

[Slapshot136]

your system should be able to run a 64 bit system.. the hardware requirements aren't any different, it just needs a semi-modern CPU, but a 2 year old computer should be fine

i was stuck at 3.2 gb of ram b4 i upgraded to an x64 system

 

[Verrak]

Ok good to know,
If I go for just 4MB of ram, is thier any diffrence if i get 4x1GB sticks, or 2x2GB sticks. My computer has 4 RAM slots. Is thier any benfit to doing one option over the other? or is price the only thing i should worry about

 

[Slapshot136]

first of all, i hope you mean gb and not mb, 2nd, it's usually more power-efficient to go 2x2, but that really applies more to laptops where it actually matters, also some motherboards claim speeds like 1600 mhz and 4 slots, but only 2 of the slots are actually capable of 1600 mhz, but both are rather minor reasons to go 2x2

 

[Romek]

It may be worth mentioning that you've got an extra two slots for future upgrades if you go 2x2.
Though that's only noteworthy if you plan on going 64bit, or using that computer for a long time (until the next Windows comes out).