Will (4) x 1gig Crucial DDR800 work in an Asus P5E?

[mismajor99]

Right now I have 2 gigs of the Crucial Ballistix (2) x 1gig installed in my desktop that has a total of 4 slots, but I want the extra gig that Vista recognizes. I remember hearing that it's important to pair your sticks in even numbers, am I wrong? Since I can get another (2) x 1 gigs of the same RAM I have for 30 bucks, will this degrade or lower the speed at which my ram is running now, which is DDR2 800? Will it drop to 667 if I add more RAM? It's been years since I've been up on my RAM knowledge. Thanks for the help!

 

[n7]

If you OC, you might need a bit more NB voltage/vdimm/looser timings, but it's not even likely any of those will be affected in way that forces you to make adjustments.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: mismajor99
I remember hearing that it's important to pair your sticks in even numbers, am I wrong?

No, you aren't wrong, but whoever told you that is wrong, assuming we're talking about the system in your sig. Skt 939 processors can only handle RAM in pairs, but your current motherboard will handle three sticks just fine. It will run two sticks in dual-channel mode, and the third in single-channel mode, giving you the best of both worlds. Here's some more info on Intel's Flex mode (at the bottom of that page).

Since I can get another (2) x 1 gigs of the same RAM I have for 30 bucks, will this degrade or lower the speed at which my ram is running now, which is DDR2 800? Will it drop to 667 if I add more RAM? It's been years since I've been up on my RAM knowledge.

No, it will still run at DDR 800, but the RAM itself won't overclock, the way two sticks of Ballistix will. n7 already mentioned the other caveats.