Hi, I have a Q6600 with 2 X 2GB DDR2 800 ram on a socket 775 Asus P5Q-E board. I am looking to add 2 more 2GB to take my system to 8GB. This is mainly for BF3 and Shogun 2. However, a mate has told me this is a really bad idea as 4 sticks of RAM will seriously hamper me overclocking the Q6600's full potential and make the system flaky?! Is he actually right? And is there any point in having 8GB in Windows 7 64bit apart from BF3? I game and I surf. Thats it. Don't really use my comp for anything else. Maybe I should just get a 2GB 560 Ti or wait for HD 7870 when it comes in March ... No point in getting the HD 7950 as even at 3.4Ghz OC on the Q6600, I will not be able to use that card to the full potential right? I can't get 4GB DDR2 at a good price or a reputable source and obviously the two new sticks of 2GB will most likely be different brand to the existing Kingston I am using.
whether you will need the 7950 will depend on your current res. what do you game at? any reasonably good quad core cpu will be able to take advantage of a gfx card of that calibre. i have 16gb and i havent noticed it has hampered my oc'ing experience, maybe it is different on older intels. imo, you dont need 8gb for everyday tasks and gaming, but it is the norm now and id get it anyway if you want some degree of future proofing
One of my older systems is based on a Biostar Tpower I45 with 4x2GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer modules and a Q6600 CPU. I think the RAM is running just below 800MHz and the CPU runs at 3.2GHz, pretty much 24/7. I think you'll be fine on the RAM because the P5Q-E is a good board with plenty of BIOS options for tweaking individual settings. In Windows 7 having 6GB+ helps, yes, but I think your CPU is probably the most limiting factor in the system at the moment (what's your current card?).
i know when i was using my QX9770 (with a different board than the one listed) then i had no problem with running 24/7 @ 4.2GHz with 4x 2GB matched sticks... ...& it had been briefly tested at ~5GHz - though, whilst the temps were fine (decent water cooling & all), i wasn't happy with the voltages... ...esp as it was quite an expensive processor at the time. it's all luck of the draw though - but your best chance would be to get 4 sticks that are the same. Having said that, for general arsing about with browsing & whatnot, the benefits aren't that huge - & if there's a more significant bottleneck in your system then you should prioritise that... ...whether it's the gfx card or thinking about a SSD... ...or not spending any money at all on an old system & saving toward a sandy bridge build or whatever.
Already got a Kingston 96GB V+100 2.5" SATA-II SSD. Obviously its not the latest and greatest but since my MB don't have sata 3, there was no point in paying a premium for something like a crucial M4. The current GFX is a lowly HD 4870. Looking to upgrade to play BF3 and Shogun 2 on 1680 X 1050. Will probably upgrade to a 1080 23" monitor soon. Still, most games apart from Shogun 2 are not CPU intensive and the current rig is plenty fast for day to day task. So I am thinking most likely just update ram and GFX will be fine as that Q6600 at 3.4ghz is still pretty good ...
hey, dont diss the 4870 its a great card considering its age. it still plays games at 2560x1440 for me although the demanding ones i have to turn down. im just waiting for kepler i had a 1680x1050 monitor before this one and it ran games fine though
Most 775 boards are very picky regarding 4sticks. Most will run them, but will downclock the ram in order to work unless you get lucky, I can almost guarantee you will be stuck in this position considering your board. My P5q did it. And yes, it is a little less stable, but not much. Remember though, your max OC will be a tiny bit lower, but your memory will likely be forced down to 800 as well. Normally, I am all for more memory, unfortunately, putting much into DDR2 at this point is a waste of money. It's just too darn expensive for what you get. Invest in your video card, then upgrade to 1155 or something later. Doing so will let you get cheaper memory, USB3, PCI-E 3, and Sata 3. Sata3 makes a big difference on SSDs that support it. Oh, and yes, the 4870 is an awesome card, they have aged extremely well.
Just to chip in a little on the original question - from what I've read it can limit the max overclock if you use 4 DIMMs rather than 2, but from my personal experience I had a motherboard with P35 chipset, 8 Gb RAM in the form of 4x2 matched DIMMs, and a Core 2 Quad clocked to 3.6 Ghz, with no stability problems at all. I wouldn't worry if it was a different brand (though obviously matched would be best) but I wouldn't like to try anything not rated for the same speed, timings and voltage.
Using all RAM slots can hurt your max overclock potential a little.. but it's negligible. Seriously.. if you were going for a world record overclock, yeah, but in your case... just fill all the slots.
For reference, I just pushed the above listed machine up to 3.5GHz last night with no more vcore required and all DIMMs still in place, and it's been folding happily with CPU load temps of 42 degrees (LC) ever since. The Q6600 can take a LOT of overclocking if you have it in the right board with the right memory.
Up untill I got my sig rig a week ago I was running a Q6600. I had 4 x 2gb RAM and managed to run the chip at 3.5ghz with no issues
Thanks for all the advice. I think I am gonna wait to get a good 2GB graphics card. If that still doesn't run BF3 good, then I will consider adding two more sticks of RAM.
Just want to say your friend is an idiot, there's no reason not to get 4x2gb of RAM, as long as they are the same frequencies and timing. You might loose 30mhz max in overclocking.
