Ram Upgrade Question

[schmutztaucher]

I'm upgrading my RAM in my Ubuntu box and I have a few questions.

I have 4 slots available with max of 16 GB total. My memory type is DDR3 PC3-8500, DDR3 PC3-10600, DDR3 (ECC)
4 GB maximum per slot.

I have 4GB Memory (2x2GB), 1333MHz, Dual Ranked UDIMM already installed. So two sticks of 2 GB with two empty slots. I want to add 8 GB more with two 4 GB sticks. My questions are;

1. If I get a 4GBx2 can i still run my 2x2GB with it? The slots are available.
2. (see attached first) Is the recommended upgrade the best possible situation? Speed matters more to me than money.
3. How do I know if the memory in the attached pic or any memory for that matter is dual ranked? I think the dual is better because I paid more when I bought it.
4. If that memory stick in the picture isn't dual, can you run dual and single on one machine simultaneously?

Sorry for all the questions!

Thanks for the help!

[Hekabe]

I'm upgrading my RAM in my Ubuntu box and I have a few questions.
...
1. If I get a 4GBx2 can i still run my 2x2GB with it? The slots are available.
2. (see attached first) Is the recommended upgrade the best possible situation? Speed matters more to me than money.
3. How do I know if the memory in the attached pic or any memory for that matter is dual ranked? I think the dual is better because I paid more when I bought it.
4. If that memory stick in the picture isn't dual, can you run dual and single on one machine simultaneously?

I can answer the first two questions easily.
1. Yes.
2. The recommended upgrade is recommended because it gives you the most RAM, and thus is the most expensive.
3.Dual ranked is (from what I read) simply a more advanced feature which is now industry standard so therefore they all are.
4. You probably should be able to. I'm no hardware expert, though.

[schmutztaucher]

From moynetworks.com/knowledgebase/SinglevsDualRAM.pdf

"For the most part Dual Rank Memory can be used in conjunction with Single Rank Memory,
and in some cases when using a large amount of memory such as 16GB,
servers motherboards actually require you to use a mix of Single and Dual Rank Memory."

So I am good there I guess.

Thanks Hekabe for the answers I was looking for.

[sailor2001]

somewhere in a tutorial it states the having over 4g ram is useless for normal usage. Gamer machines use more.

[Rex Bouwense]

Unless you are doing a great deal of complicated calculations you will not notice any increase in speed by adding that much RAM.

[schmutztaucher]

The only reason I am upgrading my ram is because its my Minecraft Server.

[schmutztaucher]

Oh whoops!

Ubuntu servers running 10.04 LTS 64bit don't have a 4GB RAM limit do they?

I was under the impression it was somewhere up in the terabytes. After searching the internets, I only get answers for the 32 bit installs.

[Maximus559]

If I were you, I'd check my motherboard's user manual. It should tell you exactly what the best memory configurations are for your system.