i7 and tri channel ram

Kon Artist

Hey polycounters,

I have a question regarding hardware... hope this is the right place:)

I have an i7 PC that is configured for tri channel ram. The motherboard has 4 slots for ram. Anyways, I need more ram. Is there anything wrong with putting in 4 sticks of ram in a tri channel rig?

I read somewhere that I would lose a little bit of performance (speed), but would have more memory (which I need)... Basically, I don't want to mess up my computer.

Thanks!

illo

you can add as much ram as your motherboard can take, check the manaul, but tri channel or ddr3 ram just means it is the third revision of SDRAM, it has nothing to do with the slots on the motherboard(well, it has no relevance in this case)

almighty_gir

what motherboard is it?

tri channel but 4 slots sounds fucked.

Scruples

You will lose tri-channel and it will revert to dual channel when the fourth slot is filled.

illo

well this is awkward, tri channel is a motherboard tech, you said RAM so I went for ddr3.

IF its ddr3 you can use as many sticks in as many slots as you want

IF its tri channel, then you need to read your board manual to check and see.

m4dcow

Something seems odd here, if it is 4 slots then it is likely not tri channel. Only tri channel i7s I know are those based on 1366pin and all those boards have 6 slots.

If you use 3 sticks of ram in 3/4 slots on your motherboard it will run all 3 sticks in single channel, not triple channel.

If you get another stick that is the same as the 3 you have it should run dual channel.

Scruples

They exist, not sure why though.

m4dcow

Wow, never seen one of those, I guess it's cheaper if you're tooled out for 4 slots anyway. From what I read about that particular board it says that the 3 sticks in the white slots will run triple channel while the extra stick will run single channel so it won't really affect speed all that much, so if you need the extra memory, go ahead and drop it in.