Hi I need help in optimizing a couple motherboards RAM. I look at the manuals and I'm not sure if I understand totally. 1.) On the first motherboard it has 3 RAM slots and they are occupied by 3x512mb (266). In the Manual it states this: "3 DDR DIMM slots: DDR1, DDR2 and DDR3 PC2100(DDR266) for 3 DDR DIMM slots, Max 3GB PC2700(DDR333) for 2 DDR DIMM slots, Max 2GB PC3200(DDR400) for 1 DDR DIMM slots, Max 1GB" the thing that confuses me is, is 1 stick of ddr400 (1g) equal or better than 3 Sticks of ddr266 (3gb)? i find it hard to believe. If I wanted to put the best RAM possible on the motherboard, what do I buy.? 2) on the other motherboard it has 4 RAM slots and 3 are occupied with 512mb (DDR400). I'm wanting to add a 4th stick of RAM and am not sure if it should be the same as the other 3 or can be different? in the manual it says this: "With Springdale chipset, this motherboard can support dual channel Double-Data-Rate (ddr) RAM. The dual channel mode allows chipsets to get data in 128bit and zero wait state bursting between the RAM. The data transfer at 266/343/400MHz. The four slots of DDR RAM can be composed of an arbitrary mixture of 64, 128, 256, 512MB or 1 GB DDR RAM and Maximum up to 4 GB." Am I correct in that, I could buy a 1GB stick of DDR400 and put that in the 4th slot? or would it be better if it matched the other 3? I'm like half sure on this stuff and would rather be very sure before I buy anything, lol. Hope yous can help
The first mothrboard is very odd... I've not seen anything like that before. Depends on what you want to use that PC for really, find out how much RAM you need and get the most appropriate speed based on that fact. For the second board, you would be far better off having matched sticks, but also, you would do better again to have 2x1GB rather than 4x512MB.
thanks for the reply man interesting stuff...I'll probably just buy a 4th stick of ddr400 (512mb) for the second motherboard and save a few bucks. The first motherboard is an Asrock board. http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=P4S61 I googled a bit and found this, they don't seem to be too sure either. http://www.motherboardpoint.com/t60249-mem-upgrade-asrock-p4s61.html
