Minor RAM upgrade; opinions sought

When I bought my DS 2 years ago, there were a lot of compatibility issues with Vista 64-bit, so I decided to just get Vista 32-bit with 2gb of RAM at 800 mhz.  As more and more software/games becomes memory intensive though, I find myself in the need of more RAM.  But I'm a bit conflicted at the moment.  I was thinking of getting 2 more 1gb sticks of RAM and plopping them in, but my mobo is a 680i LT, and I have read that the 680i sometimes has problems when all four RAM slots are filled.  So I'm thinking of biting the bullet and just shelling out another 30 bucks or so to simply replace my current RAM with a pair of 2gb sticks.  Still, it seems like a waste of money, especially seeing as how Vista will only recognize about 1gb of it anyhow, due to the OS being Vista 32-bit (I had also considered just getting a pair of 512mhz sticks, but the 1gb sticks are only 3 bucks more expensive)...

What do you guys think?  Any opinions or thoughts about any 'problems' with maxing out all 4 slots on the 680i LT?


Edited by Jingping - 12 Aug 2009 at 4:08am

Originally posted by justin.kerr You have it backwards,

LOL whats new

justin is right, you have to take into account your gpu ram also, so just because you are geting more ram,does not mean you will endup using it.

I have the same situation where I have a pc with vista 32bit and a gpu with 1GB of ram, even tho I have 4GB of ram, vista is reporting and using 2.7GB of ram.

Edited by DST4ME - 12 Aug 2009 at 1:43pm

From what I understand, vista will recognize around 3.5GB total but sees 4GB and will report that you have 4GB but its not using the 4GB, its just reporting how much ram you have.

the only way around it is to go with a 64-bit OS like vista 64-bit or win7 64-bit

Edited by DST4ME - 12 Aug 2009 at 1:28pm

for fewer problems, and more OverClock headroom, go for 2X2.