So I have an Alienware Aurora, and it's about a year old. When I bought it I thought 6gb of DDR3 RAM would be more than enough, but I have started noticing that when I run games on highest settings my performance monitor is saying that I'm using 90-100% of my available RAM.
I was looking at TigerDirect trying to choose what I should buy, I'm looking to get another 6gb. I'm confused about the difference between PC3-10600, 10660, and 10666. When I look at my computer information, it shows me that I have:
Memory Module
Mem_Capacity: 2048MB
Mem_BankLabel: DIMM #1
Mem_Type: DDR3
Mem_Bandwidth: PC3-10660 (1333 MHz)
Mem_Frequency: 1336MHz
Memory Module
Mem_Capacity: 2048MB
Mem_BankLabel: DIMM #2
Mem_Type: DDR3
Mem_Bandwidth: PC3-10660 (1333 MHz)
Mem_Frequency: 1336MHz
Memory Module
Mem_Capacity: 2048MB
Mem_BankLabel: DIMM #3
Mem_Type: DDR3
Mem_Bandwidth: PC3-10660 (1333 MHz)
Mem_Frequency: 1336MHz
On TigerDirect, I only have the options of PC3-10600, or PC3-10666. Can I use 6gb of 10666 with the already installed 6gb of 10600? Does any RAM I add have to be 1333 MHz to work? What do I need to look for to make sure the RAM I buy will be compatible with the RAM I already have installed?
As Mark has said, what operating system are you using?
What are the exact specs of that machine, do you have a link to show it?
What games are we talking about here?
6Gb of RAM is plenty assuming your system can utilise it all, to be honest, 4Gb is plenty in the majority of cases as far as gaming is concerned.
Mixing and matching RAM typically will work fine, but there are rare cases where it can cause issues. The difference in the speed (10600 vs 10660) can be as simple as there is a minor timing difference. If you mix RAM, and it works, do know the system will clock everything to the slowest speed installed. In all reality though, we are talking 3MHz which you honestly wouldn't be able to tell a difference, especially with that much RAM.
That seems quite a high memory use. My system is on 25% and I only have 4GB Ram and less than 3GB is usable. It only hits 40%+ when I have IE running. Have a good look through the Processes in Task Manager you should see what is using it all. See anything you do not recognise then tell use the process name.
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