Question about motherboards and memory

[notquitedead]

Hi, this is my first post. I have a question about how my motherboard and how much memory it can support...

I've noticed when looking at motherboards on-line it often says how much memory they will support. Is this based on the number of slots available for memory (i.e. if you had four slots you could fit 4GB's) or is it limited by something else? For example, one I looked at had three slots and said it could support 3GB. Would it not work with 3x 2GB memory cards then?

I need to know find out how much memory my motherboard (EVEREST just said it was "Dell Dimension 8300", but my computer is a couple years old so I don't know if they are using a newer version of that motherboard now) can support with it's four slots. I want to get 2GB (4x 512mb) but I don't want to waste my money if it's too old to support that much.

Edit: The chipset is "Intel Canterwood i875P/E7210".

I also have a question about memory compatability with processors... a lot of them have a number next to them such as "(2700)" or "(3200)". Is that number for a processor speed they are designed for? My processor is 2.6 GHz but I want to get some good memory (without spending too much).

 

[lurkswithin]

All the older boards are limitted to the amount of ram by the archetecture of the board. This limits the amount of usable ram to no more than 4 gigs period. Some boards built to only 3 slots and also limited it to the amount as per slot...
Now the newer archetecture is allowing almost unlimited ram amounts this is designated by the DDR2 insigna and the older boards were DDR

There are various designations as to speed of ram and the naming uses the common designations of
pc1600
pc2100
pc2700 and
pc3200

they were also designated as in ascending order.
DDR100
DDR200
DDR300 and
DDR400 which is the same as pc3200

 

[Dishdog]

most MOBOs(motherboards) can support at least 2GB. to my knowledge it has nothing to do with the number of slots though. the RAM speed has nothignto do with the processor. MOBOs can only support a certain amount of speed of RAM. the only way to tell how much speed it can handle you need to know what MOBO you have.

 

[notquitedead]

Thanks for the replies. Is there any way I can find out what motherboard I have then? Like I said EVEREST just says "Dimension 8300".

I might just go ahead and buy the RAM, if I can't use all of it I'll just try and find a cheap motherboard that will allow it. Can anyone suggest a cheap motherboard for gaming?

Edit: I searched around some more in EVEREST and it says my motherboard model is "0G0728" but the serial number is too big so there there ended up being two dots in front of it. I searched dell's website for the model number but couldn't find anything.

 

[Dishdog]

does it give you a hyperlink to your MOBO? everest does to mine.

 

[lurkswithin]

The best way to find out the specs and all that is to go to dell and look there... They do not like to give out information to the public about what/who builds the mobo for them... you may also want to try to just google for your model number and see what it comes up with.

 

[notquitedead]

Dishdog, yeah it gives me a link but recently I tried to install SBC yahoo DSL so it tries to open all the links with that... the problem is I installed that to use it at someone else's house (I move my computer around a lot for LAN gaming) and I don't have an account yet or anything so I can't use it. I uninstalled it to try and see if the links would open in AOL, IE, or FireFox but now they just don't work at all. I can't even use the links in the favorites section.

lurkswithin, I looked on dell's website and there wasn't anything at all. Google turned up a couple sites that were selling them, but it was just listed as the model number with no other information.

I don't know if DMI is a brand or not but EVEREST also says that. I didn't think it meant anything because it was in carrots but I looked it up on google and some of the links were for motherboards.

Thanks for the help, guys.