RAM upgrade advice plz

[AaLF]

G'day all. I'm mostly PC illiterate so can u guys help plz.
The 8Gb RAM is not enough. Can you tell me whether this PC can grow to 16GB or 32GB and how many sticks of RAM are best (e.g. 8gb x 2 or 16gb x1 ---- or 2x16gb or 1x32gb)

The motherboard is a Gigabyte Motherboard DA-Z777X-D3H

Current RAM slots are two with 1 x 8gb RAM stick installed. Don't know what's written on the current RAM stick. Hesitant to pull it out as last time I caused a malfunction.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1155 - GA-Z77X-D3H (rev. 1.0)

above link at Gigabyte.com says this about your motherboard:


4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory

* Due to Windows 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than 4 GB.

Dual channel memory architecture

Support for DDR3 2800(OC)/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules

Support for non-ECC memory modules

Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules

You can download the supported memory list from here:

GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1155 - GA-Z77X-D3H (rev. 1.0)

Not sure what you mean by "Current RAM slots are two with 1 x 8gb RAM stick installed".

Your board should have 4 slots, not 2.

Ideally, you should use 2 sticks total or 4 sticks total. 1 or 3 would work, but you'd give up a slight bit of speed.

If you are now using just one 8 gb stick, you should buy as near an identical stick as possible, at least matching for voltage and speed.

If you can't or won't precisely identify the stick you now have and want to be sure you won't have issues, remove the current stick entirely and buy 2 or 4 new sticks from the supported memory list.

If you want 16 total, you have to decide between buying one more matching 8, or two new 8 gb sticks.

If you want 32 total, you have to decide between buying 3 new matching 8s, or four new 8 gb sticks.

I'm not sure if your board supports 16 gb sticks, but even if it does you apparently cannot use four 16s for a total of 64. You are limited to 32 total.

 

[AaLF]

Yes. Correct. It does have 4 slots for RAM. I'd love to go for 32Gb. So is it only personal choice or is there a dif. in performance 4x8Gb vs 2x16Gb? How can i confirm if i can use 16Gb sticks?

 

[AddRAM]

Each slot only supports an 8 GB stick.

The board only supports 32 GB, get 4 8 GB sticks.

Corsair Dominator Platinum, the fastest ram the board will support.

Dominator® Platinum Series — 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3 DRAM 2666MHz C12 Memory Kit (CMD32GX3M4A2666C12)

It will have 2 XMP profiles on it #1 2666 MHz, #2 2800 MHz (confirm that with Corsair)

You could also just go with Vengeance 1866 MHz, and save quite a bit of coin, Vengeance is not Dominator Platinum but is also very good, I`ve owned it.

Vengeance® — 32GB Dual/Quad Channel DDR3 Memory Kit (CMZ32GX3M4X1866C10)

G.Skil Trident X is also very good, I ran a 16GB 2400 MHz 4x4 set in my Z87 and it was awesome.

TridentX - F3-2400C10Q-16GTX - G.SKILL DDR3 Memory

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Yes. Correct. It does have 4 slots for RAM. I'd love to go for 32Gb. So is it only personal choice or is there a dif. in performance 4x8Gb vs 2x16Gb? How can i confirm if i can use 16Gb sticks?

There's about a zero chance you'd ever notice the difference between 2 x 16 and 4 x 8.

Why do you think you might need 32 total rather than 16? Or 16 total rather than the current 8?

 

[AaLF]

My wife is a mod. in a couple of huge women only forums + facebook etc. She is always researching plenty. She can have up to 30 or more browser tabs open at anytime + Photoshop. It groans at times & is often s-l-o-w.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'd buy a matching 8 for 16 total.

If you are spooked that the second stick won't match the first, buy two new 8 gb sticks.

If you are using Win 7 Home Premium, your PC will never recognize more than 16 total, so forget 32.

 

[AaLF]

OK. Yes its win7 home prem 64. So 16gb is it. In windows 10 are there dif. versions limiting RAM too?

 

[AddRAM]

Research it

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/li...vs.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_10