Should/can I install 24gb Corsair Vengeance memory? Or less?

[Retired]

Hey everyone, I'm diving into my first PC build and I'm having trouble figuring out what the right choice is for how much RAM to install. (FWIW, since it's my first build I want to keep things somewhat simple, so I won't be overclocking, at least not yet. I'm technically semi-savvy -- I'm a UI designer -- but almost all of the issues around building a PC are new to me.) Mostly I'll be using the PC for FPS gaming, fairly frequent Photoshop/Illustrator use, and for a light-to-medium amount of HD video editing.

My naive noob impression is that the R3E board has six DIMM slots, so I should be able to fill them to the max and run six 4gb DIMMs. But I've come across threads that seem to indicate this might be an unwise choice, and I should just stick with 3 4gb DIMMs for a total of 12GB. I'm not married to the idea of 24gb, I just want to install as much as I can to get the best performance from the build.

Here are the specs I'm planning:
Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 800W (CoolerMaster’s power calculator page seems to think this build will draw 660ish W, so I figured going up a bit can’t hurt).
ASUS ROG Rampage Extreme III
Intel i7 960
Corsair Vengeance 6 x 4 gb DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800)
XFX Radeon 6970
Zalman CNPS9900A cpu cooler
Accelero XTREME Plus II vid card cooler
HD: 4 Western Digital 2TB SATA III (2 for data, 2 for backup)
SSD: Crucial 256 gb(for OS and big apps like Photoshop/Illustrator)
Plextor 12X Blu-ray burner
Plextor PX-L890SA DVD burner
Lian Li CR-36B card reader (maybe)
Lian Li P-FN04B fan controller
Re-using my current Soundblaster X-fi Elite

I'd greatly appreciate any thoughts on the memory issue. (And any other thoughts about the rest of the build are welcome too. 🙂

[Retired]

it should be doable...

you got asus support round' here 😄

[Retired]

its doable but why?
what are doing with your PC that would would require 24 GB of ram?

[Z3roSix]

its doable but why?
what are doing with your PC that would would require 24 GB of ram?

What the man said :D, still if u have the money, hell why not ? 😛

But i would suggest just put 12gigs which is more than in enough if you ask me, and keep the rest of money to buy something else for your new build (hard drives,w/c, modding material etc). 🙂

[Retired]

Great -- I'll go with 12gb. It strikes a nice balance between the 6 gigs I probably need and the 24 gigs my fevered imagination *thinks* I need. 🙂

Thanks for the advice!

[Retired]

Thanks for your thoughts! As I said, I'm a noob at this. Googling for how much RAM to put in a build like this hasn't gotten me much more specific info than "more is better". A friend advised me to put my money in RAM, and I figured, why not go all the way on that? But if it's a) not necessary to have more than 12gb, and b) just might cause me grief in dealing with the kinds of memory problems I've come across in some threads, then 12gb might just be the way to go.

[Z3roSix]

Yep, i believe what your friend meant when he said "put my money in RAM" was "faster" rather than "bigger" but that depends on what mobo you have.

[Retired]

if your just going to game go with a 1600+ plus kit in 6 gigs and save your money.

I have 12 gigs in my server because, its just that a server and running 3 OSes at once.

6 gigs is more than enough, that all my gaming box has in it

[Retired]

wasting your money, put that towards the video