Hey people,
not sure if I should post this here but if not, mods feel free to close the thread :P

I have an older PC with an Intel i7 920 and the motherboard is an ASUS P6T. I wanted to upgrade the memory, at the moment I have a 3x2 GB set and was wondering if:

1- Is it a good idea to upgrade to 2x4 GB? Am I losing performance switching from tri to dual channel?
2- What setting do you recommend me? 2x4 GB? 4x4 GB? I'm not sure what my CPU and mobo support.
3- Anything else you think is good I should know before buying anything :-)

Thanks in advance!

I'm not sure it's a good idea to throw away memory sticks you have.
Maybe it's better to just buy another 3 sticks 2Gb each? You'll have all memory banks occupied. 2Gb sticks should be cheap.
In any case, check you mobo docs for maximum memory support.

Another 3x2 does look possible. Just make sure it's exactly the same speed (ideally the exact same stuff you have in there already). RAM will always default to the lowest speed of any of the sticks you have. So don't compromise.

Given that we're talking gaming, the lack of GPU info is not helping. It might be that a cheap GPU would still be a significant upgrade for you (maybe even more so than the RAM).

I don't see how this would be worth it.

BTW, people in this forum love talking about this stuff so don't worry about that. :D

Whenever I'm going to get a new mouse or something I mention it in here and people come crawling out of the woodwork to 'educate' me. :P

That's 'assimilate'. You will become part of the Collective.

Mattnet, I have the same CPU in my rig and was asking on a tech forum about possible RAM upgrades. Not knowing what board you're using, it's hard to make sepcific recommendations, but if it's a tri-channel board, you're probably best off just grabbing a 3x4GB kit. You should still be able to find one that's compatible with your board.

GPU is an ATI Radeon 5870. I'm planning to upgrade piece by piece when I scrape the money as at the moment the rig is still good enough for most games so for this time I was thinking of extending the memory and buying an SSD. I read around that with nowadays standard I should have at least 8 GBs and with more recent games I do see my memory being full at times.

You think GPU should be a higher priority than the memory?

No. You do need some extra RAM and saving up for a GPU rather than splitting the budget this time around is a sound strategy. There is definitely scope to update the GPU without breaking the bank. But personally right now I'd hold off on GPU updates until we know exactly what DX12 really lives up to the hype or not. It could really be a game changer.

Are you eligible for the free Win 10 upgrade, by the way? Because I don't think DX12 will be available on earlier versions of Windows and it sounds like it's worth the hassle of upgrading by itself.

Question is how much do you wanna spend and how much ram do you really need? if you are gaming go max of 8 to overkill of 16 or hit the sweet spot of 12gb of ram which will be enough to do anything in YEARS to come even 8 is perfectly fine but if you are playing more modern games from EA and such you will need 12 gb max.

go with 2 sticks of 8gb each or go 4 sticks of 4gb each. or equal to 12gb

the card is fine for a while but upgrade when amd's new series comes out and that cpu is still god for a long time as well just overclock it a bit to keep up with speeds and suck.

I built 33 computers like this when I was working at my local computer shop when I was a pc builder for the store.

ram is a big thing later on and cpu. graphics not such a big deal cause those phase out real fast not cpu or ram


PS ram speeds for that cpu should be the lower of I think 1600 or 1333 oc is 1800 if my memory still serves me right.
but if your motherboard can support 1600 get that and overclock it lightly to 1800 which should save you a lot of money around 40 dollars

Nope, at the moment I have Windows 7. I'll consider upgrading when DX12 comes out but for now I'll stick with this. Have to change at some point either way as Win7 doesn't have proper support for more than one screen. I want to spend something around 100€ to 150€ for the memory, which I guess most of your suggestions more or less fit. It's not that easy to find tri-channel RAMs around anymore though, it's not that used anymore I guess. If I buy another set of 3x2 GBs to add it means that it will be tri-channel with 6 sticks, right?

I already have overclocked the CPU so I think I'll be fine for a while as you said and GPU is probably going to be my next purchase after this is done. My mobo supports 1600 as I have those installed at the moment.

So to sum up I guess I'll try to find another 3x2 GB with the same specs of the ones I already have installed at the moment so I'll reach 12 GBs. It's also the cheapest option as with a quick search I can find them for around 60€. Sounds good?

Yeah, that would work, and looks like the most economical way to go about it for now.

if you can get more of the sticks you have for cheap than do it up I think it would be the best best to hit up to 12gb and save some money but I guess getting a new set will cost a little bit due to it being out of print.

It's pretty sad to see so many users recommending that this guy pours more money into this old thing instead of saving it toward a new build. Shame on you. Gross.

Oh relax, I'm sure he can afford it. It's not like he lives in Canada. :D

OOOPS! Did I just type that? :P

I don't want to get a new rig altogether as I cannot afford that. I prefer upgrading the PC one piece at a time. After this it will be GPU and after that mobo and CPU (but a long time to go as I don't feel the need for it yet).