Hello and thank you for looking. I am currently buying a new video card gforce 1060 6 gig and I want to go from 8 gigs of ram to 16. I have 2 4 gig sticks atm and 2 empty slots. My issue is on sites like newegg. Im not sure which one is the correct one to buy. I downloaded a program called cpu z. It says I have DDR 3. each stick being 4096 megs of ram. Max bandwith is Pc3-12800(800mhz). brand g.skill and part number is f3-12800cl9-4gbrl. the dram frequency is 799.9 mhz. If anyone can help me with a link to the sticks that I have I would appreciate it. I could find ones that say pc3-12800 but not 800 mhz. Thank you reguardless.
Comments
DDR stands for double data rate, and transmits data twice in a clock cycle. That's why depending on how it's measured you may get the number of clock cycles (800 MHz), or the number of transmissions (1 600 MHz).
So just get memory that's sold as PC3-12800 1 600 MHz, and that should work.
EDIT: If you can get the exact same part (F3-12800CL9-4GBRL) somewhere at decent price that would be the best so that you could be sure there are no compatibility problems. But if you can't, likely any PC3-12800 part will work without problems.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314
The one you linked should work too.
Disclaimer: This post was written in 2 minutes before leaving for work. If someone else links other RAM then he's likely had time to give his choice more though. I just linked the first one I found
You could also simply look at the ram you have at the moment and do a google search for the same type.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231455
Or 16 GB:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231560
What CPU do you have, anyway?
I'm not sure where you're looking to buy, but the GTX 1060 looks rather overpriced at the moment. Even the 6 GB version is barely any faster than the Radeon RX 480 on average, but it's a lot more expensive. For example:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202270
Or if you want more memory, here's an 8 GB version:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131694
Also doing a bit of searching on G.Skill's website, your RAM is likely same as this
http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f3-12800cl9d-8gbrl
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314
If I understood their naming standards correctly, the D-letter just means it's dual channel kit of that RAM, and 8 means size of the kit. That's also released already in 2010 so you could have got that RAM type when you bought your original computer.
But maybe I've missed something.
I'd suggest opening your computer and looking that sticker on the RAM to see the model. If Newegg picture is to be believed, both of your RAM sticks should have a white sticker showing the model and timings.
There's no need to spend $35 extra just because it could be incompatible. Especially with DDR3 RAM, 1 600 MHz is fast enough for OP's computer, and there's no sense buying faster DDR3 RAM for future upgrades because future upgrades will be with DDR4 anyway.
Still, I'd question why you're bothering to upgrade from 8 GB. Do you do anything where you're running out of memory? If not, then there's exactly nothing to gain by adding more. Memory is a case where you have enough or you don't, and if you already have enough and add more, all you do is waste money and burn a little more power for zero benefits. More memory can perhaps help a little bit due to prefetching if you don't have an SSD, but the solution to that is to get an SSD.
I ipgraded my pc ram from 4 to 16 recently. I took 2x8Gb with 1600Mhz and I`m completely good with it.