RAM capacity restrictions for ITX motherboards.
RAM capacity restrictions for ITX motherboards.
Wasn't certain about placing this in New Builds & Planning or here. It wasn't a brand new build, focusing more on compatibility and upgrades. I currently have 16Gb of RAM, but performance is hitting the upper limits (city skylines and mods are to blame). My motherboard (ASUS P8Z77-I deluxe) shows 16Gb as the maximum, but is that a strict limit or just marketing? Since it's an ITX board with only two DIMM slots, it's duel channel. Larger boards with four slots list a higher limit of 32Gb. It would be costly to test higher capacity sticks, so I'm wondering if the RAM cap was based on half the full-size board’s capacity, considering then-average consumer RAM sizes. Given the chipset supports 16Gb per channel, adding two 16Gb modules should work unless I need a bigger case or upgrade, which could be pricey right now.
Your system's components appear outdated based on the information available. According to Wikipedia, the motherboard you have suggests an older CPU model that likely doesn't support 16GB DIMMs. Additionally, these parts are scarce and costly, making it impractical to upgrade just for a small RAM price increase. It might be more sensible to replace the entire setup rather than spending significantly more on obsolete hardware. You could likely find a newer used motherboard or CPU for a better value.
Thanks for the update. The CPU is indeed an older model (3770k). It’s unclear what was going through your mind while working on the chipset—I’ll just attribute it to not having coffee in the morning. Also, the 32Gb RAM I found at a decent price on PC Part Picker seems to be labeled as DDR4, so I probably wouldn’t have been able to use it effectively.