P4P800 - dual channel with 4 x 512 possible?

[gramboh]

Hi guys,

Have an older system with a P4P800 mainboard currently running 2 x 512meg Corsair XMS3500 @ 2-3-3-7 in dual channel mode without issue for coming up 3 years. I want to upgrade to 2GB and am wondering the best way to do it:

1) Buy another 2 x 512meg (either Corsair 3200LL or something else) for ~$150 CDN and try to run 4 x 512 in dual channel -- not sure if this is possible, from what I remember when I setup the system you could do it this way but it was harder to get it stable especially with CAS2 timings with this many sticks.

2) Buy a 2 x 1GB Corsair 3200 kit (TWINX2048-3200C2) for $270 CDN and try to sell what I have now. Rated to run at 2-3-3-6 this looks good. Not sure how much I can get for my 2 x 512meg XMS3500 sticks which is the problem.

Option 1 is nice if it works because I don't have to deal with trying to sell PC3200 DDR when people can buy cheap CAS3 valueram easily. Option 2 would be good if I could get $130-140 for my 2 x 512 (not likely) as it would reduce the cost of upgrading.

Opinions?

 

[classy]

Shouldn't be any problems. Anand has done some testing I believe on this. Check the site.

 

[F1shF4t]

i've used 4 * 256 sticks on a p4p800 e deluxe board and never had any isuues or problem, make sure ur stick pairs are matched and there should be no problems. The chipsets of intel systems are not picky on ram like the amd athlon 64 memory controllers are, u can run even 3 sticks of ram prolly without any problems, not dual channel though.

 

[gramboh]

Found the article classy mentions after a bit of searching:

http://www.anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=1839

Thanks for the advice. Since I can't seem to find XMS3500 anywhere, I'm going to try to sell my sticks now and buy a TWINX2048-3200C2 kit to replace them.

*EDIT* eBay is great, stumbled upon an auction for 2 x 512meg Corsair XMS3500 Platinum Edition used and won it for $51 US. Woot.