Fill All Ram Slots Or Not

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No you dont have to fill all slots. Usually its the Gray slots you have to fill for dual channel memory to work (Check your MOBO manual to make sure of the positioning.). Ok my friend, now for the real answer - it will in fact hinder you performance to fill all your slots as most motherboards today are made for either dual or tri band memory and the dual channel ONLY works if you install it in the 2 specific slots its meant to be install it in. Installng more than 2 ram modules negates the dual ram function and therefore performance loss - also dual channel has.

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Feb 20, 1999
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The motherboard I am getting (ASUS P5WD2) has four slots for memory, total of 8 Gig. I'm going to put 2 Gig in (need it for large video editing files) Am I better off to get 4 512s and fill all slots so if one goes bad I can replace at cheaper price or am I better off to go with two 1 Gig sticks? Will that board run on only 1 stick or does it need to be in pairs? If the memory needs to be installed in pairs, then I think it would be better to have 4 sticks so you can troubleshoot memory.
What do you think?
And what about memory brands? Is Altas Good? If not what is do you recommend?

Slots
This is the total number of memory upgrade slots (sockets) followed by their configuration. Banks are the way a system addresses memory. A bank must be completely filled with memory modules of the same size and type in order for the system to recognize and address the memory. i.e. :
3 (3 banks of 1) This indicates that there are 3 memory slots. These are divided into 3 banks, and each bank consists of one memory slot. So you can add memory one piece at a time for the system to use.

Fill All Ram Slots Or Not Available

4 (2 banks of 2) This indicates that there are 4 memory slots. These are divided into 2 banks, and each bank consists of two memory slots. So you must add memory two pieces at a time (they must be the same size and type of memory) in order for the system to benefit from the upgrade.

Not

Fill All Ram Slots Or Not Recognized

12 (3 banks of 4) This indicates that there are 12 memory slots. These are divided into 3 banks, and each bank consists of four memory slots. So you must add memory four pieces at a time (and they must be the same size and type of memory) in order for the system to benefit from the upgrade.