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#1 Jan 29 2012 at 10:14 AM Rating: Good
So, I snagged a sweet deal on some DDR3 the other day and have 16 gigabytes coming my way for $70 with another $20 in mail in rebates.

My motherboard supports 16 gigabytes max, so I'm not worried about that.

However, I have 512 megabytes of v-RAM on my video card as well. The video card is the 2nd to next thing to get upgraded (after I install a solid state OS drive in this sucker).

Since my motherboard only recognizes 16 gigabytes of RAM max, will the v-RAM on a new video card even be a factor? Or does the v-RAM still stack in there somehow?

Windows 7 64-bit, obviously.
#2 Jan 29 2012 at 11:34 AM Rating: Good
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Is it s dedicated video card or integrated video?
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#3 Jan 29 2012 at 1:07 PM Rating: Good
Dedicated, usual PCIe 2.1 x16 etc.
#4 Jan 29 2012 at 3:24 PM Rating: Excellent
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Not a factor at all unless you were running windows 32 bit.

Also, are you certain your motherboard only recognizes 16GB max, or is that the highest possible amountthey could conceve of at the time it was manufactured? often times those nubmers go up with a bios update. sometimes they don't. it depends on the motherboard manufacturer.
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#5 Jan 29 2012 at 3:56 PM Rating: Good
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Just a few things to be wary off, in case you haven't thought of them already:

Stability with full capacity can vary depending on the memory controller in play. As Kaolian pointed out--might want to check with your m-board mfg's website beforehand for the details and go ahead and download the BIOS updates and such in advance, just to be on the safe side.

IDK if it's much of a problem now with all the new power regulation on the boards and such, but some older boards had issues when all banks are filled and memory is maxed (more so if you overclock anything)--sometimes a BIOS fixes it, sometimes you actually need a new hardware revision. It might increase your power draw a little across the motherboard, so things may become a bit unstable if you were marginal on voltages for an overclock also. I always dread swapping new modules on an old build--never know if my previous timing/voltages are gonna be good with the new modules. Often have to go back to defaults and tweak/test to find the sweet spot again.

Might also be a good time to look at your power supply while you're at it--especially if upgrading the vid card. PSU is one of the more frequenlty overlooked things. A lot nvidia cards got returned for this very reason a few generations back---no one ever even thought about all that increased horsepower would be increasing power load, even though they were plugging a power connector into the edge of the video card. :P
#6 Jan 29 2012 at 8:53 PM Rating: Good
Yup, PSU and video card are getting upgraded together at the next stage. Smiley: nod

The current video card is a low voltage card and while the 400 watt PSU I have in there is not a heavyweight by any means, neither is the video card it's running. There are no other cards besides the video card.

I'll look into a BIOS update. The system is less than a year old; I purchased the kit with an eye to doing a major upgrade in about a year (i.e. now) but maybe MSI has something new out.

Edit: Checked; last BIOS release was in 2010 and I have the latest version.

Edited, Jan 29th 2012 9:56pm by catwho
#7 Jan 31 2012 at 2:09 PM Rating: Good
Installed it today. There's always that cross-your-fingers moment when you first reboot it, muttering "no POST beeps, no POST beeps..."

But it booted up without anything worse than a grumble about all the USB hardware drivers needing to be reinstalled, which it did without any problems.

16.0 beautiful gigabytes of RAM.
#8 Jan 31 2012 at 3:19 PM Rating: Excellent
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Man, I only went from 4 to 8 GB Smiley: frown

But I upgraded the CPU from an i3-560 to an i7-860 Smiley: smile

A new GPU and I'll have enough left over bits to buy a cheap motherboard and make another computer.
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#9 Jan 31 2012 at 6:40 PM Rating: Excellent
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I upgraded my ram the other day to 24, between that and the new 3GB 580 GTX, I'm happy for the moment. I've discovered I need to upgrade my water cooling pump and CPU water block before I can go to a socket 2011, so I've still got a ways to go before I can contemplate that.
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#10 Jan 31 2012 at 8:45 PM Rating: Good
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I've had 16GB for awhile now. For my needs it's overkill, I don't come close to using it all. It just bothered me looking into my case and seeing the two empty slots, I just had to max it out.
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