How do I find out if I have any spare RAM slots

[designbychris]

Hi all,
I want to find out how many RAM slots I have left on my PCSpecialist desktop. Can anyone tell me how to achieve this in Win10?
Thanks in advance
Chris

 

[Rakk]

Not sure how you would do it in Windows, but since its a PCSpecialist machine, if you log into the main site and look at it in your orders it will tell you what motherboard you have and what RAM you have and from that we can determine how many slots are free

 

[Oussebon]

I'd probably take the side panel off and just look.

You can also download CPU-Z http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html run it, and look at the SPD tab. There will be a dropdown menu with an entry for each slot, and it will tell you what is installed in each slot.

Are you looking to get more RAM?

 

[designbychris]

Yeah I was just thinking that the machine in general is absolutely fine.. Just thought that some extra ram might speed it up a little bit. Was hoping to check if there were slots without opening it up.

 

[Oussebon]

Extra RAM may not be the best way to pep up its performance. If you post your full spec like Rakk suggested people could offer opinions on whether it's worth the cash, or whether there's something else you could do. RAM prices are a bit high these days.

 

[designbychris]

Case STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4820K (3.7GHz) 10MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P9X79 PRO: INTEL® SOCKET LG2011
Memory (RAM) 32GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS QUAD-DDR3 1600MHz X.M.P( 4 x 8GB KIT)
Graphics Card 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 660 - 2 x DVI, HDMI, - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card NONE
3rd Graphics Card NONE
1st Hard Disk 2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
Partitions: 1000GB, 1000GB
2nd Hard Disk 2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
Partitions: 1000GB, 1000GB
3rd Hard Disk NONE
4th Hard Disk NONE
M.2 SSD Drive NONE
RAID NONE
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive NONE
Memory Card Reader INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable 1 x 2 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Fan Controller NONE
Extra Case Fans NONE
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking DUAL-BAND WIRELESS 802.11N 450Mbps PCI-E CARD
Wireless Router/HomePlugs NONE
USB Options MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

 

[Rakk]

Motherboard ASUS® P9X79 PRO: INTEL® SOCKET LG2011
Memory (RAM) 32GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS QUAD-DDR3 1600MHz X.M.P( 4 x 8GB KIT)

Well, it looks liek that motherboard has 8 RAM slots, of which you are using 4, so there are still 4 to spare.
Though what are you using it for? 32GB is a lot, and for most people they wouldn't be using half of it.

 

[designbychris]

I do a lot of Photoshop work and it just seems to be taking a little while to start up these days... its probably the amount needing a clear out more than more RAM. Just thought it was worth checking.

 

[Oussebon]

I think your top priority would be adding an SSD.

Unless you're editing images around a gigabyte in size I'm not sure there's much call for more than 32gb RAM from what I've read.

An SSD is recommended by adobe for photoshop: https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/photoshop/kb/optimize-photoshop-cc-performance.html#manage-scratch-disks

And would make your general PC usage experience a lot faster if you reinstalled Windows and programs onto it.

The Samsung 850 Evo would be a good choice, and I'd suggest the 250gb model (at least). PCS can sell it as an upgrade or you can source your own.

NB: your motherboard has the following sata ports:

Intel® X79 chipset :
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), white
4 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s), blue,
Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10
Marvell® PCIe 9128 controller :
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), white
ASMedia® ASM1061 controller :
2 x Power eSATA 6Gb/s port(s), green

I vaguely recall an issue where some sata ports (possibly ones with the Marvell controller) were supposed to not be very fast on certain motherboards. I'm not sure if your mobo would be one of those. But to be sure, when you get your SSD you will probably want it plugged into one of the Intel Sata 6gbps ports. PCS may have plugged your HDDs into those, but moving one to the Sata 3gbps shouldn't affect its performance.

You may also want to check your CPU and GPU's temperatures with a program like HWinfo or Realtemp. Have you been dusting the inside of your PC at all? If not, this might be a good opportunity to do so.