help Thinking of upgrading RAM

From the Asus site:

• 4 x DIMM, Max. 16 GB, DDR3 1800(O.C.)*/1600(O.C.)/1333/1066/800

If you mix the RAM you'll get 1333, if you put only the new sticks in it will probably default to 1333 but you can change it in the BIOS to 1600.


As for performance, if you regularly get near to 4GB usage then you'll see an improvement.

No, you can't force RAM to run faster than it was made for (except for very slightly through overclocking). So if you installed the 1600mhz RAM alongside your current ones, it would make the 1600mhz sticks run at 1333mhz, instead of the other way around. Basically, if you had 4 sticks each at a different mhz, they would all only run at the speed of the slowest stick.

I.E. Say you had 4 sticks running at 1333, 1600, 1866, and 2400, respectively.
They would all just be running at 1333 because that's the speed of the slowest stick and you couldn't force the slower sticks to run at the speed of the fastest stick.

There is very little difference in performance from increasing the RAM speed. This page shows the difference for apps like WinRAR and this one for games. Probably not worth the hassle to overclock the RAM speeds and adjust the timings to get it working smoothly.