Opinion on this RAM?

So I have a pathetically low amount of RAM on my PC and I've been thinking about upgrading. Not necessarily for gaming purposes, more like a general performance boost. Would this be good enough to run things like photoshop, chrome and other software at the same time? How long do you think they'll last before I'll be feeling the need for an upgrade? I'd like to be able to use them again in the future when I decide to build a new PC.

It's a 32 GB G. Skill RAM kit. I think it's on sale for $160 CAD.

BTW, if I only plug 3 of these into a PC, will it work all the same? I think it should, but I'm not sure with these things.

They'll work with 3 plugged in but DDR3 is optimised to work in pairs or quads (Quad-Channel in this case).

With 24GB of RAM you will have 0 problems with memory usage and should be alright with multi-tasking. Possibly reduce/disable Virtual memory otherwise Windows will reserve the same or more space for a page file.

Also just have a check to see how close your RAM slots are to where the CPU heatsink is. With these taller RAM heatsinks, sometimes the CPU heatsink gets in the way and you have to remove the RAM heatsink to get everything to fit.

@dodgyc: Thanks for the advice. I think I'm alright with the space, but I'll check to make sure.

It might be helpful if you posted your motherboard make and model number. Or if this is a prebuilt system (dell, hp, etc.), post the system model name & number.

And how much RAM you have now. If you have 4GB now, absolutely upgrade if you can. If you have 8GB and have the cash sitting around to upgrade, 16GB+ couldn't hurt. If you're at 16GB, unless you're seeing your RAM get maxed out regularly, there's probably not much need to upgrade.

As @dodgyc mentioned, your system is most likely set up for dual channel memory (RAM performs slightly faster when using 2 or 4 sticks). It's possible you have a triple channel board, but unlikely. (If you bought a system that came with 6GB of RAM installed, it could be triple channel.)

@wraithtek:

I have an ASUS P6T. I think it's this one. I'm pretty sure it could take the RAM and I only have 3 gigs of ram right now, so I definitely need to upgrade. How big of a drop in performance would I get with 24 instead of 32? The motherboard can only take 24, but I was thinking of getting an extra 8 for once I start a new PC.

If that's your board, check out the manual (available here). It has recommendations for which RAM slots should be populated, based on number of sticks used. Yours actually is a triple-channel board, so performance is best with 3 or 6 DIMMs, but you can also run dual channel with 2 or 4 sticks.

Personal opinion, take it for what you will - you're probably just fine getting a 12GB kit now (3 x 4GB; may want to update your BIOS before trying 4GB sticks?), and by the time you get a cpu and motherboard, you'll be going with DDR4 anyway. Pocket the extra cash and save it for your new system or other upgrades. 12GB should allow for having a tab-heavy browser open + playing a modern game at the same time. Unless you're doing some really heavy video editing, or running virtual machines on your PC, or in general running a bunch of memory-hungry apps at once while trying to play a game, you probably don't need more than 12GB. It's not overkill, but it's not holding you back at all.

Looking at ASUS's updated PDF of memory recommendations, I don't see any 24GB kits listed. There's one 12GB kit listed, and it was run at only 1066MHz (instead of that RAM's advertised 1600MHz speed). That, and the manual recommends additional cooling for 6-DIMM configurations. Even though you don't have to stick exactly to a manufacturer's list of supported RAM, I'd be hesitant to buy a 24GB kit, 6 x 4GB at 1600MHz, and expect it to run at full speed.

And all of this is dependent on having a 64-bit OS. If you're running 32-bit Windows 7, for example, you're not going to be able to take advantage of more than 4GB of RAM.

And maybe I forgot to say it, but 12GB is still going to make a huge difference, compared to your current 3GB.

@wraithtek: Haha, I went ahead and ordered 16 gigs instead before you posted this and I'm running on 64-bit windows 7, so I think I'm good? Though I will keep a note on the update your BIOS bit. Don't know how to do that, but I should probably figure it out before the RAM gets here.

Anyways, thanks for the help. Hopefully this works out.

Updating the BIOS on Asus motherboards is very easy. There is a utility that you may have installed already that should have came with your motherboard software called Asus Easy Update. It will check your hardware and tell you if there is an update available, then download it for you. Otherwise, you can go to the Asus website and download the latest BIOS revision appropriate for your motherboard. It will most likely be an EXE, you just run it from Windows and it does everything automatically.

It looks like the most recent BIOS revision for the P6T is from 2010, ver. 1408. It doesn't look like any memory compatibility was changed after version 0904 from January 2010. All of the other BIOS revisions past that were for CPU support, although it looks like they did address an issue with hard drive sizes above 2.2 TB being reported incorrectly. You should probably update that BIOS.

Yeah, I mentioned updating the BIOS, because the manual PDF mentions being able to use 1GB and 2GB DIMMs, but didn't mention anything about 4GB DIMMs. But the product page lists a 24GB max, so it'd have to support 4GB DIMMs. The updated memory PDF, as I mentioned, does list a kit with 3 x 4GB, plus the list of BIOS updates page includes several references to "improved memory compatibility."

At least with a 16GB kit, if for some reason it's having trouble with the full 16GB, you can remove a stick and rearrange DIMMs if necessary, and try booting with 12GB instead.

Good luck; it'll sure be nice to have more than 3GB RAM.

@mike: Thanks. I looked at the link provided by Wraith and the latest BIOS update is from 2010.