Adding old memory?

Dan J · 20 Jul 2012 at 17:03

Hi just a quick question...

Is it a good or bad idea to use free memory slots with old memory?

For example if 2 slots have 4gb memory (8gb total) then is it worth putting 2 x 1gb memory in the other slots? Will this ultimately improve mem performance or decrease it?

Ta

OptimaLnrg · 20 Jul 2012 at 17:13

The frequency, timings and voltage need to match. edit: ad obviously it needs to be the same DDR as your current memory..

Just stick with 8gb, you won't see any benefit.

BrianB · 20 Jul 2012 at 20:05

It will probably work fine, but completely unnecessary. Stick the old memory on ebay. 8Gb is plenty. I'm assuming your 1Gb sticks are either cheap or ancient. It's more likely to decrease performance, as your ram will all run at the same speed of your "old memory".

Dan J · 20 Jul 2012 at 20:06

Hmmm yeh I wondered as my initial thought was more memory = better but then thought you don't want the computer utilizing 'less good' memory...?

BrianB · 20 Jul 2012 at 20:22

The capacity is just capacity. It's the time it takes the cpu to access data from memory that make it faster. Latency, and bandwidth help. Capacity used to mean faster because you couldn't multi task without enough memory, would have to wait for hard disk to write to memory before CPU can process data. I've never managed to utilize my 4Gb but I don't do much more than gaming.

If you needed more memory you'd be better off getting another 4Gb or 8Gb of the same spec, though I wouldn't go for the 4 I'd get another 8Gb. I had loads of DDR2 lying around, sold each 2gb pair for about £25 each.]

If you have some spare time maybe you would enjoy reading some of this : http://chortle.ccsu.edu/java5/index.html