Edcase

Looking to upgrade my ram as my machine is struggling to cope with 12mb raw image editing from my D200 using Nikon software (notoriously memory hungry) plus lightbox and CS3.

Currently have an Asus ABN32-SLI mobo and 2 x 1024mb PC3200 DDR-ME ram.

There are 4 slots for ram on the mobo, two of which are blue and two are black. They are ordered blue / black / blue / black.

The current ram is located in both of the blue slots.

SO:

1) what's the difference between the blue / black slots?
2) why is the current memory only in the blue slots?
3) can I just get 2 more of the same types of memory and put in the black slots.
4) does anyone know what the maximum performance ram this mobo will support / what are my other options.

I used to know this stuff inside out when I was a developer, but it's been a fair few years now!!!!

Consoles have a lot to answer for

thanks in advance

Ed

jpor

iTrader: (1)

1) what's the difference between the blue / black slots?

The coloured slots are used for RAM to be put into a mode called DUAL CHANNEL mode (look this up in Google for a better explanantion), where the memory is accessed faster. I.e 2 in blue or 2 in black. If 1 is in black and the other is in blue you don't use this special speed feature.


2) why is the current memory only in the blue slots?

Becuase of the above.

3) can I just get 2 more of the same types of memory and put in the black slots.

Yes.

4) does anyone know what the maximum performance ram this mobo will support / what are my other options.

Best to check out the makers website and look under support for the model of board you have.


Hope that helps?

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

That mobo probably supports (sorry at work and cant think as looking at a screen has killed me ) but basically
if your memory is paired in either the black or blue slots, ie 2 in the black or 2 in the blue, then its
quicker than just one in the black and one in the blue.
Also you can upgrade your memory (see the attached link for the manual for your pc) to 4gb, just have a read
of the manual for the info
http://dlsvr02.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...32-SLI_Dlx.pdf

Tony

turbomatt

iTrader: (1)

Dont forget if your using windows xp then it wont recognise 4gb of memory, Only 3gb will show iirc.However vista supports 4gb and more.

Edcase

Great, thanks.

Re: XP why won't it show up? So 1gb of the ram would be wasted? In which case would I be better upgrading the current ram to faster ram and sticking with 2gb overall? Or will that not help with my image processing performance issues?

cheers
ed

HankScorpio

32 bit processor architecture can only use 3 and a bit (can't remember the bit), vista 32 bit is the same, need 64 bit to go higher.
Loads of googling if you care that much!

HankScorpio

meant os, not processor

Edcase

Ok given that I'm not likely to upgrade to Vista for quite some time, is it worth spending £100+ on another 2gb of matched ddr400 memory if I'm only going to see a benefit from half of it?

Am I likely to see any performance benefit at all?

rmtypeR

Just to complicate things....

With Athlon 64 CPUs, if you use all 4 slots on the motherboard the memory will run at a slower speed - i.e. your normal DDR400 will run at DDR333 speed. This is certainly the case with my Asus MB (A8V) and I think it holds for all AMD64 CPUs.

As long as you can live with the above, I'd say get 2x 512MB DIMM's to fill the other 2 slots (due to the 32bit OS seeing a maximum of about 3.25GB) As mentioned above, the colour coded slots relate to the dual-channel RAM. If you were just to put 1 single 1GB DIMM in an empty slot you would switch to single channel mode which would halve the memory bandwidth.

turbomatt

iTrader: (1)

Yes i think you will see an increase in performance, Btw I just bought 2 gigs of ocz platinum for £35. Memory is cheap as chips at the minute.Or you could get 2 x 512mb modules which would make 3gb and still run in dual channel.You have to have either 2 or 4 slots filled to enable dual channel.But personally i would just buy another 2 gb and then your future proof for when you decide to get vista.

rmtypeR

Edcase - re: will you see an improvement - when you're working on one of these camera images, try looking in taskmanager at the green memory graph under the CPU Usage. If this is close to or above 2GB then more memory will speed things up.

Matt - where did you get that 2GB OCZ from - was it DDR or DDR2? Thanks.

Edcase

That's ridiculous. Why does that happen?

At this rate I think I'm better just sticking with what I've got

Edcase

Sorry that came over a bit victor meldrew didn't it

turbomatt

iTrader: (1)

ddr2 pc6400
dabs.com - OCZ Technology 2x1GB 240DIMM PC2-6400 DDR2 Gold (OCZ2G800R22GK)

Daz34

DDR2 is dirt cheap at the moment. Unfortunately DDR isn't.