4 filled memory slots

[ComatoseDelirium]

I have a p4 system, are their any system penalties from running 4 sticks of ddr 256 ram? Im assuming it will no longer be dual channelled..

 

[CheesePoofs]

Its still dual channel, but JDEC (i think that's what it is) specs state that the ram should run at 166mhz instead of 200mhz when you have 4 sticks. Normally you can manually bump the speed up to 200 and you should be fine.

 

[ComatoseDelirium]

Hey thanks for responding, for some reason I thought their were no performance penalties like lower mhz with p4's when using 4 slots. I want 1 gig of ram mostly for gaming reasons, but now with further analysis of the situation.. I may just spend 200 dollars.. get 2 new 512 MB kingston value ram, and trade in my 256's for maybe 80.

 

[stevty2889]

It will most liekly run just fine and will still be in dual channel mode. My gigabyte 8IK1100 has 6 ram slots, and I was able to run 6x256MB sticks in dual channel mode just fine, although it's running at 133mhz FSB. And on my Asus p4p800 I also had 4x256mb sticks running in dual channel at 400mhz.

 

[ComatoseDelirium]

ahh... well money wise.. its not really worth it.. since.. 512 mb is only 30-35 bucks more expensive, multiply that by 2 you get about 70, the price I'd get for my new ram the 2x512mbs, would be close to the amount i'd pay for 2 more sticks of 256mb.. plus I'd only be using 2 slots over 4, keeping room for further expansion,

 

[thegimp03]

wow, i've never seen a 6 slot board. guess i'm a newb.

 

[V00D00]

my motherboard has 6 slots. 2 for DDR2 memory and 4 for DDR memory.

 

[stevty2889]

Even though it has 6 slots, you can only use all 6 up to DDR333, ddr400 only allows you to use 4 slots. But I'm running a 533fsb CPU on it so I have all 6 slots filled up.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: CheesePoofs
Its still dual channel, but JDEC (i think that's what it is) specs state that the ram should run at 166mhz instead of 200mhz when you have 4 sticks. Normally you can manually bump the speed up to 200 and you should be fine.

i believe thats more for athlon 64 than intel, intel should run fine with all slots full at full speed

 

[TStep]

When I was on a highly overclocked P4/Abit setup, I had run 2x256mb OCZ EL and 2X256 Mushkin Level I PC3200. Had no problems at all. Highest overclock was less by a few mhz, that is the only thing I had noticed. Timings were unaffected.