Mixing 1Rx8 and 2Rx8 ram sticks and what does 1Rx8 and 2Rx8 mean

[heyketz]

I have a Gateway GT5014 that has 1gb (2x512mb) of Samsung DDR2 1Rx8 pc2-4200 533mhz ram installed. I'm looking to upgrade the ram to 3gb. Can I mix 1Rx8 (2 sticks of 512mb) and 2Rx8 (2 sticks of 1gb) together without having any conflicts?

 

[tcsenter]

Shouldn't be a problem, though you might need the latest BIOS from Gateway if it doesn't accept this combination.

 

[blueyes917]

1Rx8 has the memory on one side only. 2Rx8 is a two-sided memory stick. I have 3.5GB of memory in my PC. Two sticks are 1GB ea and 1Rx8, 1 stick is 1GB, 2Rx8 and 1 stick is 512mg, 1Rx8. My Dell Inspiron 530 allows mixing of one-sided and two-sided memory sticks, which is what the 1R and 2R designation means. The R may stand for rank, but not sure about that. Crucial.com indicates that, although my PC allows for installation of non-matching memory sticks, it is best to install matching pairs so the chips are identical. This allows for maximum performance.

 

[geeksalive]

1Rx8 has the memory on one side only. 2Rx8 is a two-sided memory stick.

That's not true, Blue. I have, right in front of me, two sticks of Samsung double-sided DDR3 (one 1G and one 2G), and they are both labeled "1Rx8 PC3" -- and they are both double-sided.

"1R" means "single rank," and "2R" means "dual rank" organization.

 

[Mattdogg]

1R8 may look dual side, which it is, but both sides are connected, running 1 stream of data on the stick. 2R8 is dual side also, but both sides run independently (not connected) to allow 2 seperate streams of transfer on one stick.

 

[Hippie Pete]

Mixing shouldn't be an issue, just make sure they're both the same speed. However, you'll be limited to how many sticks you can add, and may not be able to utilize all of your available slots once the ranks add up. It's also entirely dependent of the system board. How many memory slots do you have? My workstation has 8 slots, altogether. In this case, you could either have a maximum of 8 of the 1Rx8 sticks or 4 of the 2Rx8 sticks. 8 ranks would be the maximum supported. Therefore, a single rank (1Rx8) would count as one, whereas a dual rank (2Rx8) would count as two, all of which would be added up to a total maximum of eight (8 times 1R or 4 times 2R, or any combination, thereof, that would total "eight").