What's better 4 or 6 ram slots?

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I'm just interested in finding out your oppinions on which boards you think are better, the ones with 4 ram slots or the ones with 6.

In your answers could you explain why you think your chosen one is better and i don't want to just know the specs of each i want to know how they have performed on experience.
 
6 ram slots, LGA1366 high end supports triple channel memory. 4 ram slots other systems that support Dual channel memory. Basically based on what kind of system you are building and what you are going to use it for.
 
Well i want to use my board for gaming mainly but work aswell so what board would you recommend?
 
yes it is in my budget and i think i'm going to choose that option.

However what would someone who needed a 6 slot ram motherboard be using it for and if i wanted to upgrade to a different motherboard could i use parts like sound card and graphics card again.

 
The only reason for the 6 slot boards would be to run triple channel ram, which of course would help with heavy rendering and 3D modeling where Ram performance would be important factor in time savings. It would be a measurable difference in gaming but noticeable.
 
RAM with only one channel (the conventional, old type RAM slots) have a single path to and from the North Bridge (the controller on the motherboard handling the interactions between the CPU and the RAM, PCI, etc.). This means only one path is used for all the slots (whether the motherboard has 2 or 4, and this means that the speed is very limited. Dual channel however, means it has another path added to this controller, making read/write rates much faster. The same applies to Triple channel, with three paths.

This can be compared with a highway. The cars are the data packets, and the roads the "paths" or "channels" on the motherboard:

Only so many cars can travel on a highway with one lane. Add another lane however, and the capacity of cars increase. Another lane, and it increases even more.

But it is necessary to remember the speed at which the cars have to travel:

Having a lot of cars, only capable of 60km/h (compare this to DDR3-1333), makes the use of 3 lanes unnecessary, as they will only clutter up the road and not fully utilize it, and thus making the money it cost to build the extra road excessive.

But having the same amount of cars, capable of traveling at higher speeds of say 90km/h (compare this to DDR3-1800), you will gain much more if you build another lane or path for them to travel along, making the amount of cars using the road over a certain time justify the money needed to build another lane.

Now, you are at the max. You have still the same amount of cars, but now they are able to travel at 120km/h (lets make this the DDR3-2200). They will travel fast along one lane, faster along two and at maximum speed along three lanes. This means that it is worth the money spent to build another lane, making these cars give their full potential.


What I'm trying to say is this: You cannot say Triple channel is better than Dual channel, if you are only going to use a P4 processor. The same applies the other way around: Dual channel isn't always better, as overclocking on the new Sandy Bridge processors makes it possible to use both Dual and Triple channel to a lot of their potential.

Personally, I would've appreciated Triple Channel on my Asus P8P67, as I believe the i5 2500K processor I got can benefit from the extra little speed, but hey, the designers know best right?
 
Thanks a lot for your answer i like the way you compared it to the lanes. As you can probably tell i am really new to making my own pc and don't know a lot.

You say you have an asus P8P67 and i just want to know what stuff you are using with it such as RAM, graphics cards etc.

And what case would you recomend for it?
 
Heh - I (like a lot of people) am bursting to get a Sandy Bridge 2500K. I was looking at the MSI p67 ####55 board because I want to crossfire my 5850s. I will need to replace my Corsair XMS2 with some XMS3 (DDR2 800Mhz to DDR3 1600Mhz).

The Triple channel memory was for the 1366 boards (Core i7 9 series CPUs) and it WAS the king, until about two weeks ago when Sandy Bridge was released. And the new CPUs will go even faster than the 1366 ones, even with only dual channel memory.

The memory read and write speeds are PARTICULARILY fast, so dual versus triple channel is now a moot point.

Parry93 - You could probably get away with any mid-tower case. Even a cheap one. I just did a build with a CoolerMaster Elite 335, with was cheap and cheerful.

Get yourself some Dual Channel DDR3 RAM (PC12800 = 1600Mhz), a 4GB kit is almost as good as an 8Gb kit. For Sandy Bridge platform keep the RAM to 1.65v and under. You only really need 2x2Gb DIMMS to get great performance. You can get 2x4Gb DIMMS then upgrade later to 4x4Gb DIMMS (16Gb RAM!). You can basically use any DDR3 dual channel RAM you want.

Graphics cards at the moment - GTX570 is awesome. Also consider a GTX460 if the 560 is too expensive. You could also get the 6970, 6950, 6870 or 6850 from ATI. If you got loads of money get the GTX580. Just depend on your budget. The NVidia 5XX carda and the Radeon 6XXX cards all have excellent scaling for SLI or Crossfire, so if you want to use 2 graphics cards you will get upto a 100% performance boost.
 
Thanks a lot for your help.

Unfortunately i cannot currently affordthe GTX570 card but i am considering the GTX460.

Also can you explain ho a 4gb kit is nearly as good as 8gb when 8 is double.
 
Just one more question. I found a deal on the case which comes with a 500W PSU. Will this be enough for my P8P67. Also is the power adapter normally included with the PSU or the motherboard. By adapter i mean the thing with the 24 pins on the end.
 
Also a completely unrelated question but will i be able to install a blu ray drive to this motherboard?
 
The PSU will come with the cables for the motherboard. Please post a link to the motherboard/PSU combo. In theory a 500 watt PSU would be enough for a 2500K and a GTX460, but if the PSU doesnt have enough AMPs of the 12v rail(s) then it might not be so great.

I would consider a 500W or greater OCZ StealthXtreme2 for a good budget PSU. Anything by Corsair is great. Antec and Coolermaster are also absolutely fine. You want something with a 80+ Bronze, Silver or Gold certification. This just guarantees efficiency and stability within a certain acceptable range.

The GTX460 is a great card! Good choice.

If you get a PSU, with a CPU/mobo/RAM, a case, a GPU, a HDD and a DVD, you will find all of the correct cables are supplied. The power cables will all come with the PSU. The motherboard will likely come with 2xSATA (hdd/dvd) cables. The GPU will come with 2xmolex to 6/8pin PCIExpress adapters, which you probably wont need but are a good backup if your PSU only has 1xPCIe power cable.

A GTX460 requires 2x6pin PCIExpress adapters from the PSU.

As for the 4Gb vs 8Gb thing, well basically it wont make very much difference in real-world applications.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/memory/2008/07/08/is-more-memory-better/5

Heres some people arguing about it on a forum:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=18041355

But basically if you spend $60 or whatever on another 4Gb, you are going to get barely noticable differences.
 
Yes you can install a blueray drive :). You can have either 6 or 8 (without looking at the mobo picture) SATA devices (HDDs, SSDs, DVDs, Blueray etc). They require SATA power connectors (your PSU will likely have atleast 3 of them).

All of this stuff is basically just plug and play. Your motherboard will recognise any SATA devices automatically. Gone are the days where the user actually had to go into the BIOS and change anything, except for maybe the time and date, but those are generally kept pretty well too!
 
I cant really afford the top range i7 cpu but what do you think would be a good one for me considering i need one good enough for gaming.
 
OK here is the PSU, reviewed:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Cooler-Master-eXtreme-Power-Plus-460-W-RS-460-PMSR-A3-Power-Supply-Review/550/10

It might just be able to run your proposed system, but you are really pushing it. According to the review it only just managed 420-430 Watts, although it was quite stable. And your graphics card will push it to it's limit, I think there are just enough amps on your 12v rails for your proposed build, but I would recommend something a bit more powerful.

Im also from the UK BTW, and I think the best place to get stuff from is here:

aria.co.uk

They are in Manchester, I buy loads from them and they are reliable, and the best prices in the UK I think.

Im gonna spec you up a machine from them, if you give me 5 or 10 mins 😉
 
Ok thanks a lot man i just assumed you were american because you referred to $'s earlier.

I think your right about the PSU and i'll wait and see what you come up with now.
 
OK here is a build:

https://www.aria.co.uk/WishList/-AnzOhOSdvQHny-1b1-VZg,,

No operating system. No screen. Used a dvd drive. Add roughly £40 if you want blueray. The HDD is put on there is fast and great value for money.

This machine will overclock to 4.3 Ghz at the push of a button 😉
 
if i got everything you just put in the build except the motherboard and got the p8p67 would all the graphics card, cpu etc be compatible?
 
Yeah if you got the asus p8p67 deluxe you could SLI another GTX460 in the future. Might want to get a 600watt+ PSU if you are planning on doing that. And you get USB 3.0 in the front panel! :)
 
Thanks so much for your help im ordering the stuff with a p8p67 board now and as this is my first build so would you mind me asking you some questions when i am assembling it.

Does the lead to connect the pc to a screen normally come with the board?
 
Yeah it would work. To be completely honest you could use any p67 or h67 board.
The case I put in that build is a really cheap one by the way. It will work fine, but you might want a more stylish one. Any mid-tower case would work fine for your purposes. You might want to get the GTX460 1GB version instead of the 768Mb version I linked. I dont know about your budget. The 1Gb version will give a nice little boost in most games. But the 768Mb version is great value for money.
 
I dont think you will get a cable. The card has HDMI out by the way, so you can attach it to a HDTV if you want.

But you generally get monitor cables with the monitor. This GPU supports VGA, DVI and HDMI cables.
 
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