Want to upgrade ram

[Glsec507]

I have an Asrock Z75 Pro 3 Motherboard and it states that I accepts 2800+(oc) ddr3 ram. I want to upgrade from two 4 gb sticks to 2 8gb sticks.

How do i know what speed I should buy?
Is having two 8gb more or less beneficial than 4 4gb sticks?
Once I buy the new ram is this as simple as pulling the old ram out and putting new ram in and your done?

Also my cpu is an I7-3770k (OCd to 4 something) if that makes a difference.

Before people start saying you should search or read your motherboard manual or whatever please keep in mind that the searches and reading I have done so far haven't answered my question for two reasons... 1) I don't know exactly how to search for exactly what I'm asking and 2) I don't understand the responses I have seen. I play games, specifically arma mostly. Just got into the pc world this past fall.

 

[moulderhere]

In order to properly give you a real answer, you should provide what operating system you are using. Is it Windows XP?
Is it Win 7/8 32 bit or 64 bit as well?

 

[Greybush]

2800+ (OC), Means the motherboard can support memory 2800MHz+ when overclocked. Look for a speed without OC at the end of it and that is the ram speed natively supported by your board. Just a word of advice if you are not doing any type of rendering or cad work just get some 1600MHz ram and call it a day. You wont tell a difference between 3000MHz and 1333Mhz in games.

 

[Glsec507]

I have windows 8 64bit I believe (not
At my pc currently).
I saw that my cpu accepts 1333 and 1600 ram.

The ram that's currently in it is 1600.

What about timings and any other little Specs that are listed when choosing ram?

So far I know I'll need to look for 2 sticks of 8gb ram at 1600 that is ddr3 and 240 pin.

Thanks for the help

 

[jitpublisher]

Why do you need to upgrade? The amount and speed you have now is perfect for most people....faster wont get you anything that you will notice.

 

[Glsec507]

Well I bought the pc off someone and for the most part everything has been great. Every now and again my pc will randomly restart in the middle of a game. That or the game will freeze up forcing me to restart. The gpu is a bran new 7950 all temps appear normal at the time of the fault. Aside from my power supply I figured the ram would be an easy upgrade that could potentially solve my issue.

 

[Greybush]

What type of power supply do you have?

 

[Whammy]

I have to agree with these guys, your RAM is fine and no game will ever take advantage of more than 8Gb, so that isn't the reason why your computer crashes in games.

 

[Tradesman1]

With a 3770K, you can realistically run up to 2400 in a 2x8GB config, best bets would be the GSkill Snipers or Ripjaws X lines - look for 18669 or 2133/9 or 2400/10

 

[Glsec507]

It is a 700w OCZ power supply. Amd I thought random crashing (and the one bsod I had) could potentially be cause by failing memory...

 

[Tradesman1]

Is the DRAM set up with XMP and do you have the latest BIOS

 

[Glsec507]

I wouldn't know how to check that. And how canyou check bios version

 

[Tradesman1]

Boot to the BIOS, it will have the version # in the opening screen, then go to your mobos website and look up the BIOS versions, the latest will have it's number and date - as far as the DRAM go into BIOS and see if XMP is enabled.

 

[Glsec507]

So my memory is set up in xmp. But I didn't see anything that mentioned bios version. Only an option to flash UEFI.