Mixing 3x 2gb sticks with 1x 4gb?

[Matt Dower]

First off, what is better for hardcore gaming, 6gb DDR3 or 8gb DDR2?

I have 3x 2GB DDR3 Corsair ram chips giving me 6gb of ram.
I also have 1x 4gb Adata ram chip.

The Corsair run at 1600MHZ and the Adata runs at 1333MHZ.

Is it possible to put all of these in a system at get 10gb, or somehow overclock the Adata 4gb stick from 1333MHZ to 1600MHZ?

Or could I put 2 of the 2GB corsair chips in 1 pair (same colour slots) of ram slots and then the 4gb Adata in one of the other coloured ram slot, so using 3 ram sticks and have 8gb total?

Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 217926]

DDR2 and DDR3 will only work on the same motherboard if you have a very late generation LGA 775 board. Only a few were made and you can't use them both at the same time.

DDR3 is faster than DDR2. The 6GB of DDR3 is better in about 95% of any situations. The 8GB would be better if you were hitting a memory limit with 6GB.

It would help if you would list your hardware. It's hard to give you a good answer without knowing what motherboard and CPU.

 

[Matt Dower]

Well I'm making a new computer so I'll give you the specs of what parts I have.

Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocked to 3.6ghz.
Radeon HD 6970 2GB.
120GB SSD
500GB Hard Drive
NVidia 780i SLI motherboard (LGA775 socket)
DVD Drive
XFX 750W Power Supply

Then either 6GB or 10GB of DDR3 ram depending on your guys answers

 

[cin19]

1) Forget all about the 6GB, 8GB, and 10GB, if you use the PC for games, 6GB is more than enough.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ram-memory-upgrade,2778-8.html
2) DDR3=DDR2, read the reviews even they are old.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/ddr3_6.html#sect0
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1782/amd_phenom_ii_ddr2_vs_ddr3_performance/index11.html
2) Most of time don’t mix the RAM that have different speed and timing, because it is not guaranteed you can boot up the PC 100%.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

Well I'm making a new computer so I'll give you the specs of what parts I have.

Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocked to 3.6ghz.
Radeon HD 6970 2GB.
120GB SSD
500GB Hard Drive
NVidia 780i SLI motherboard (LGA775 socket)
DVD Drive
XFX 750W Power Supply

Then either 6GB or 10GB of DDR3 ram depending on your guys answers

So your board only supports DDR3? If so you will want to run matched sticks. So 2 x4GB or 4 x 4GB. The same colored memory slots need matched sticks in them to run in dual channel mode. You will gain more memory adding a third stick for 6GB but lose about 5% overall RAM speed from the loss of dual channel mode. So it's a tradeoff.

If gaming is the main use of the computer just go with 4GB. Any games new enough to need 8GB are not going to run well enough on a dual core CPU to be playable anyway.