Upgrading to 4gb of RAM

[Judderman]

HI Guy/Girls. I was wondering if someone maybe able to help me with some advice, I built this PC last year but with the plan of upgrading it in the future. Well the time has come and I now need to add more memory as I am studying alot using Virtual machines and the 4gb I have is just no longer cutting it.

The problem I have is this, really I would just like to add another 4gb of the same memory as I currently have but I can not seem to find identical memory anywhere.

According to CPU-Z the part number for my memory is OCZ3P1600LVAM2G, this memory was rated at 1600mhz but I have never been able to get the PC to boot at that so I have it running at 1333mhz (7-7-7-24 1t).

Like I said earlier I would really like to buy another 2 x 2gb sticks but I dont know what is compatiable, the voltage on this memory seems to be 1.5v and other similar kits seem to run at 1.65v. Can I mix and match my memory and if so how will this effect performance?

I am hoping not to have to buy a whole 8gb of memory but was wondering what my options were.

Any help is greatly appreciated

 

[Grizzly]

You can mix and match memory and in your case the only bottleneck there could possibly be is in the timings as your'e running everything at 1333 anyway, just make sure you get memory with the same or lower timings, voltage shouldn't be too much of a trouble as most memory will run at 1.5v at stock.

 

[Judderman]

Many thanks for the reply, I was looking at the below memory as its the nearest match I have found:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/241087

Do you think this would be my best bet?

The timings are roughly the same as the modules im running and the voltage seems the same as well.

Will this mean thou that I have to run 4 sticks in single channel mode or will all 4 memory slots run in dual channel?

Its kind of annoying that OCZ have discontinued my memory, it isnt like DDR3 is really old either!

 

[Grizzly]

Is the RAM you have currently single channel then? I think in terms of channels it works between modules hence you usually buy dual kits for dual channel or triple kits for triple channel, so as long as you have the 2 different memory pairings in the right slots (look at the manual to check) on your motherboard you should have the new pair working dual channel and the old single channel

 

[Judderman]

Hi

, my current memory sticks run in dual channel but I wasnt sure if they will all run in dual channel with 4 modules on the board.

Im not sure it will make much difference performance wise as this machine is not really used for gaming but more for studying, and that requires more RAM.

Think I am going to take the plunge and purchase those 2x2gb sticks and hope they will run at 1333mhz @ 7-7-7-24 1T.

If not I will have to sacrifice the timings for the extra RAM, its not like I have much choice lol

Thanks for your help