Question, purchasing some more RAM. Input needed.

[Taybox]

I am going to be 5 boxing soon. only thing i was worried about was if my PC could handle it. I have 2 gig ram in it now. my question is.

if i were to add more RAM, does it have to match the RAM i have in it now? or can i buy any type or RAM. here is what i was thinking about.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145197

[elsegundo]

I am going to be 5 boxing soon. only thing i was worried about was if my PC could handle it. I have 2 gig ram in it now. my question is.

if i were to add more RAM, does it have to match the RAM i have in it now? or can i buy any type or RAM. here is what i was thinking about.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145197

two thinsg you should know about ram.

1. they work in pairs. and these pairs must be installed in the correct order. meaning 2 gig chips go in the first slot, 1 gig chip goes in second slot, 2 gig chip goes in third slot, 1 gig chip goes in fourth slot. dont ask why this is the case. its just how the mobos are designed. you can always configure it your way, but optimally, you'll get better performance if you match the pairs. many mobos have colored ram slots for this purpose. pair 1 goes in white slots, pair 2 goes in blue slots (or whatever color scheme your mobo uses).

2. they run as fast as the slowest ram. weakest link sorta deal. the ones you're buying are PC2 8500, or they run at 1066MHz. if your older ram is PC6200 or 5600 or whatever other numbers you will find... it means they're running at a lower speed, and your computer will match ALL your ram to the LOWER speed no matter how fast your new ram can go.


also, you might wanna consider if its compatible with your OS. if you have a 32bit OS, you are limited to 3.7gigs max as that's the max your OS can handle. if you're replacing your old ram, fine. no biggie. if you're adding 4 gigs to your current 2 gig setup, totaling 6 gigs, you will need Vista64 to utilize all of the ram.

[not5150]

What RAM do you currently have in your system? If it's old or slow, then it might make sense to buy new RAM and to replace the existing modules.

[Taybox]

What RAM do you currently have in your system? If it's old or slow, then it might make sense to buy new RAM and to replace the existing modules.

I just found my exact computer specs. let me know what will best suit my need for 5 boxing on 1 machine, and let me know if my specs can handle it.



Power Supply ( 650 Watt -- NZXT PRC-650 Power Supply SLI Ready )
Processor ( [Socket-AM2] AMD AthlonT64 X2 6000+ Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology )
Processor Cooling ( [=== Silent ===] Thermaltake V1 CPU Cooling Fan System Kit Silent & Overclocking Proof = Ultimate cooling performance + Smart CPU & System Thermal Management )
Motherboard ( Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe nForce 590-SLI MCP Chipset w/7.1 Sound, Dual Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, IEEE-1394 Dual PCI-E MB )
Memory ( 2048MB [1024MB X2] DDR2-800 PC6400 Memory Module Corsair-Value or Major Brand )
Video Card ( NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTS 640MB w/DVI + TV Out Video )
Video Card Brand ( === High Performance === eVGA Brand Video Card Powered by NVIDIA ) Hard Drive ( 500 GB HARD DRIVE [Serial-ATA-II, 3Gb, 7200 RPM, 16M Cache] )
Monitor ( LCD Monitor Viewsonic 22" Widescreen VG2230wm TFT LCD Monitor 1680x1050 [Black] )
Operation System ( Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic

[Taybox]

looks like my RAM is 6200, and needs to be replace by the 2x2gig 8500 or w/e

[ChaoticMonk]

Your ram is PC6400 which is 800mhz which is the fastest your motherboard can support. Buy another PC6400 2gigs (2x1024) sticks and you should be good.

[Gurk]

I am assuming you are using vista 32bit. That means your system will only see 3gb of ram so I wouldnt get more then 4gb total, like you are planning. Right now I use Vista 64bit and I have 8gb of ram.

Typically I am running these applications:
MSN
WoW x4
Ventrilo
Firefox w/ 8 tabs.
Steam
a few other minor apps.

So quad boxing I am sitting at between 48% to 55% memory used, which is just over 4gb of ram. That already exceeds your 3gb of planned memory, which means if you plan to 5 box you will experience a lot of slow downs do to accessing your HDD swap file.

I will say that I noticed a difference between 4gb and 8gb, but only in places like Shattrath, when I had to load a lot of players. I can't tell you how many times I died falling off the elevator from Aldor rise. Now it is very smooth and will only stutter for a second or 2.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ram is very very touchy. If you go 4 sticks I would use exactly the same 4.

I do understand that 2 pairs of the same kind should work but Ill tell you ... its not a good practice. They might work on 10 different computers A-OK then fail on the 11th.

If you go to a 64 bit operating system go to 8G, if you go from 4-5 or 4-6 you wont gain anything (talking about installed not what the OS reports).

[Aethon]

Close, Gurk; A 32 bit OS will use 4gb MAX of all ram, including video. With a 640mb vid card, s/he'll only have ~3.3gb of usable system RAM.

[pengwynman]

I am going to be 5 boxing soon. only thing i was worried about was if my PC could handle it. I have 2 gig ram in it now. my question is.

if i were to add more RAM, does it have to match the RAM i have in it now? or can i buy any type or RAM. here is what i was thinking about.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145197i bought that exact package this past week, working fine for me (don't really have much use for the fan, but the package WITH the fan was cheaper than the pack WITHOUT so...)

[Epotus]

Typically I am running these applications:
MSN
WoW x4
Ventrilo
Firefox w/ 8 tabs.
Steam
a few other minor apps

I'm an advocate of Firefox. However, its a huge memory hog. I would highly recommend using Opera ('http://www.opera.com/') while 5boxing. its much smaller in its memory consumption even with multiple tabs. Occasionally it won't render items as well as FF, 99% of sites come up just fine.