I have a P6T-SE motherboard with i7 920 cpu and 3 x 1GB sticks TR3X3G1600C8D, the board has 6 memory slots, if I fill the other 3 slots with identical 1GB sticks will I still retain triple channel status or will performance be impaired, or indeed ,will it make any difference ?
I have to agree with Yen, Are you really going to notice much difference in perfomance ? Idont know for sure, yes you will have more power. You can install 6 ram modules and yes they will remain in triple channel mode. However using 6 DIMMS will increase the voltage being drawn from the mobo and this will generate more heat. This means you may want to consider better cooling solutions. Better off to do as Yen said, use 3 sticks of 2gb ram. This also stays in triple channel mode but less voltage so less heat. Also worth remebering that when buying DDR3 ram make sure that it runs at 1.65 volts or less, otherwise you risk damaging the cpu.
I hadn't even considered the heat factor, maybe i'll stick with 3 sticks of 1GB and 32bit 7 Ultimate, I dont do anything that is over demanding of my system, I have excellent figures in performance ratings (7.5 cpu & 7.9 mem, 7.1 HD) Graphics are only 6.5. I dont even need to overclk cpu, have set mem to 1600 in bios and capped voltage at 1.64. Many thanks for help and advice.