From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-11

In article <8db6dkd2n98f25o3tsagsj83ld95527tur@4ax.com>,
none@none.invalid says...

On Tue, 23 Sep 2025 14:49:13 -0400, Jason
<jason_warren@INVALID.ieee.org> wrote:

Upgrade to Win 12 is finally complete, thanks to help I
received here.

Win 11, most likely.

Now I'm ready to upgrade memory in my Alienware Aurora R9.
I love this machine - it's very fast with excellent
graphics, but 8GB isn't enough.

The memory installed is 2600 MHz. Most sites that sell
memory offer DDR4-3200 DIMMs. I presume that means 3200
MHz. True? I assume that's compatible...

Over the years, I've learned to trust the Crucial site when it comes to memory upgrades. You don't have to buy from there and you don't even
have to use Crucial memory, but their site is good at telling you what's compatible, as far as speed and capacity, etc.

https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/alienware/aurora-r9

If that's not your system, just click the "Change System" button at the
top to select a different system.

Thanks! Yes, Crucial is at the top of the list when I do a
general query. Everything there for the R9 is of the 3300
flavor, so I presume that'll work. Will the machine run
faster? Will I notice?


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From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-11

On Tue, 9/23/2025 6:41 PM, Jason wrote:

In article <10aus0b$371rt$1@dont-email.me>,
Paul@Houston.Texas says...

There is a lot of info about the R9 at the Dell site.
This is the memory spec pages:
https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/alienware-aurora-r9-desktop/Alienware-Aurora-R9-Setup-and-Specifications/memory?guid=guid-b0024580-18d7-4e8e-b494-84193888b9ee&lang=en-us

This is the replacing RAM pages:
https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/alienware-aurora-r9-desktop/Alienware-Aurora-R9-Service-Manual/removing-the-memory-modules?guid=guid-590c016e-ba8e-42f6-a918-4851c3bd3713&lang=en-us

NOTE that the fast ram is XMP. You will need to turn XMP on in bios
otherwise it will run at a slower speed.

I have never needed more than 16 gb but 8 gb was not enough for multi
tasking. Get the 3200 speed ram if available.

I've read material on the Dell site but hadn't seen
anything about 3200 MHz ram. Thanks.

8 GB DDR4 at 2666 MHz 1x8
16 GB DDR4 at 2666 MHz 2x8
32 GB DDR4 at 2666 MHz 2x16
64 GB DDR4 at 2666 MHz 4x16

16 GB XMP at 2933 MHz
32 GB XMP at 2933 MHz
64 GB XMP at 2933 MHz

16 GB XMP at 3200 MHz
32 GB XMP at 3200 MHz 2x16 <=== This is the most practical combo
64 GB XMP at 3200 MHz <=== This is OK, if you have a whole week to spend on tuning...

DDR4 is (partially) out of production, and the
asking price is one of the reasons it is sorta
back in production for a few months.

This is in the spare PC at the moment (part of test hardware during instability issue times).

https://www.newegg.com/g-skill-ripjaws-v-series-32gb-ddr4-3200-cas-latency-cl16-desktop-memory-black/p/N82E16820232091

F4-3200C16D-32GVK
Timing 16-18-18-38
CAS Latency CL16
Voltage 1.35V

XMP is mainly certified with two sticks.
It is not tested with four sticks (as info placed in SPD rom).

The two sticks go at the end of the bus, for best SI.
That's what any install instructions should tell you.
the install instructions then, help identify which slots
are on which bus.

CPU ----x---- Here
----x---- Here

When there are four slots, you would see

CPU x Here x Here

for the four slots. The first two slots are on one channel,
the second two slots are on the other channel, and the terminators
are programmable and inside the memory chips. Unlike some
earlier memory standards, where terminators and a terminator
supply voltage, were outside and on the motherboard.

When you start a system with new memory, it might show a lower setting
as an auto determination. In the BIOS (since yours says XMP),
you should have an XMP memory setting. Some companies are nice about
it, and it is a button on the front console in the BIOS. Other bastards
hide this four layers deep in menus and use a different acronym for it (my Asus board does this).

My DDR3 system, if you fill all the slots, it would crash on XMP.
It had to be manually tuned, due to bus loading.

My recommended config, with two sticks, and two empty slots,
that should not require tuning. It's DDR4. And on my AMD systems,
I could use XMP with two sticks or four sticks, and the exact
same timing 15-18-18-38 worked with either stick setup, which
surprised the hell out of me.

For a DDR5 system (not your system), we regress a bit, and two sticks
in end-slots is recommended for those for DDR5-5600. As when you
install four sticks, the timing degrades quite a bit (much lower clocks).
I don't think enabling XMP with four fast sticks on DDR5 would be a
good risk to take. There was one report, of a motherboard having
a newer BIOS installed, where the four stick setup was treated better,
so maybe the way the BIOS was handling this was too conservative.

None of this, of course, makes any difference to an Intel CPU.
Via caching and high hit rate, most of the time you would not
be able to tell what spec is in there.

*******

You can check your current memory timings with CPUZ.

https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

ZIP English <===

For comparison, this shows someone playing with the R9.

https://www.dell.com/community/en/conversations/alienware-desktops/aurora-r9-corsair-lpx-xmp2-profile-doesnt-exist/647f8be1f4ccf8a8dec0bcdc

This is what my memory shows (and this memory isn't really
all that special).

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/HxSHSXph/CPUZ-AMD-Daily-Driver.gif

You might want to look up the specs on any memory you are buying,
and see if the spec says "for Intel systems", on the off chance
there is some issue with having one XMP profile versus two XMP profiles.
It could be that CPUZ is not showing the entire table, for example.

While checking the specs, verify the height clearance below
the CPU heatsink. Some large heatsinks, they clear about 40mm
for RAM. And it can be a bit close if you buy sticks with the
"decorative edges" on top. RAM sticks which lack heatsinks,
their height can be a bit less. If the stick runs at an elevated
voltage (something an Alienware would do, a Dell less so), then
the cooling surface would help a bit with two sticks. But when
four sticks are installed, the air channel between DIMMs is
too small to cool the central sticks. Which is why there are
decorative fingers on the tops of the DIMMs, as "pretend cooling".
My daily driver has a fan blowing from one end of the DIMM cluster,
for cooling, and that's just the setup that was there when a DDR2
motherboard was present there. I never bothered to change a thing
when swapping in the replacement motherboard for the dead Core2.
The surface temperature of the DIMMs is quite cool, and might not
even be 40C at the moment.

The Aurora can't turn up the voltage too much, because the Intel
CPU has a max memory voltage it allows. And the voltage boost is
rather "standardized" now. It's not the Winbond era, where you could
run a 2.5V DIMM at 3.6V :-) Those days are over.

On my daily driver, no setting seemed to matter. It would
run with either XMP profile (the "first" profile should be 2T
and stable, the "second" profile button should be the 1T unstable
one, when they use un-labeled! buttons). A test with memtest86, showed
a few gigabytes per second more bandwidth in 1T mode, as a proof-of-pudding that the command rate really was 1T. That was the only visual proof
I could collect of what was going on. Intel has historically
preferred 2T at high clock rates (that is, an extra cycle of
setup time for Tsu, which helps at high bus loads).

Paul






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From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-11

On Wed, 9/24/2025 2:53 PM, Jason wrote:

In article <8db6dkd2n98f25o3tsagsj83ld95527tur@4ax.com>,
none@none.invalid says...

On Tue, 23 Sep 2025 14:49:13 -0400, Jason
<jason_warren@INVALID.ieee.org> wrote:

Upgrade to Win 12 is finally complete, thanks to help I
received here.

Win 11, most likely.

Now I'm ready to upgrade memory in my Alienware Aurora R9.
I love this machine - it's very fast with excellent
graphics, but 8GB isn't enough.

The memory installed is 2600 MHz. Most sites that sell
memory offer DDR4-3200 DIMMs. I presume that means 3200
MHz. True? I assume that's compatible...

Over the years, I've learned to trust the Crucial site when it comes to
memory upgrades. You don't have to buy from there and you don't even
have to use Crucial memory, but their site is good at telling you what's
compatible, as far as speed and capacity, etc.

https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/alienware/aurora-r9

If that's not your system, just click the "Change System" button at the
top to select a different system.

Thanks! Yes, Crucial is at the top of the list when I do a
general query. Everything there for the R9 is of the 3300
flavor, so I presume that'll work. Will the machine run
faster? Will I notice?

Most likely, you will not notice.

Some of the "expensive things you can do", are 5% better, and you
have to be on a "time-sensitive mission" to notice that small of
a difference in something.

One of the things we used to appreciate, was when running a system
and using the iGPU inside the CPU, the graphics would "snap" with
two DIMMs. That was the appreciation factor of running two DIMMs,
when you did not own a graphics card. One DIMM would make the graphics
a bit slower. And that was your "present" when you installed two DIMMs.

You have a graphics card with its own VRAM, so there will be no effect
of that sort, as the screen is driven by VRAM.

Paul


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From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-11

Jason <jason_warren@INVALID.ieee.org> wrote:

In article <8db6dkd2n98f25o3tsagsj83ld95527tur@4ax.com>,
none@none.invalid says...

On Tue, 23 Sep 2025 14:49:13 -0400, Jason
<jason_warren@INVALID.ieee.org> wrote:

Upgrade to Win 12 is finally complete, thanks to help I
received here.

Win 11, most likely.

Now I'm ready to upgrade memory in my Alienware Aurora R9.
I love this machine - it's very fast with excellent
graphics, but 8GB isn't enough.

The memory installed is 2600 MHz. Most sites that sell
memory offer DDR4-3200 DIMMs. I presume that means 3200
MHz. True? I assume that's compatible...

Over the years, I've learned to trust the Crucial site when it comes to
memory upgrades. You don't have to buy from there and you don't even
have to use Crucial memory, but their site is good at telling you what's
compatible, as far as speed and capacity, etc.

https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/alienware/aurora-r9

If that's not your system, just click the "Change System" button at the
top to select a different system.

Thanks! Yes, Crucial is at the top of the list when I do a
general query. Everything there for the R9 is of the 3300
flavor, so I presume that'll work. Will the machine run
faster? Will I notice?

It you regularly run multiple apps - who doesn't? - then you'll notice the improved responsiveness of switching between them as they don't have to
page out to swap.

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From Newsgroup: alt.comp.os.windows-11

On Thu, 9/25/2025 7:02 AM, Chris wrote:

Jason <jason_warren@INVALID.ieee.org> wrote:

In article <8db6dkd2n98f25o3tsagsj83ld95527tur@4ax.com>,
none@none.invalid says...

On Tue, 23 Sep 2025 14:49:13 -0400, Jason
<jason_warren@INVALID.ieee.org> wrote:

Upgrade to Win 12 is finally complete, thanks to help I
received here.

Win 11, most likely.

Now I'm ready to upgrade memory in my Alienware Aurora R9.
I love this machine - it's very fast with excellent
graphics, but 8GB isn't enough.

The memory installed is 2600 MHz. Most sites that sell
memory offer DDR4-3200 DIMMs. I presume that means 3200
MHz. True? I assume that's compatible...

Over the years, I've learned to trust the Crucial site when it comes to
memory upgrades. You don't have to buy from there and you don't even
have to use Crucial memory, but their site is good at telling you what's >>> compatible, as far as speed and capacity, etc.

https://www.crucial.com/compatible-upgrade-for/alienware/aurora-r9

If that's not your system, just click the "Change System" button at the
top to select a different system.

Thanks! Yes, Crucial is at the top of the list when I do a
general query. Everything there for the R9 is of the 3300
flavor, so I presume that'll work. Will the machine run
faster? Will I notice?

It you regularly run multiple apps - who doesn't? - then you'll notice the improved responsiveness of switching between them as they don't have to
page out to swap.

These systems don't typically do that. There is a Memory Compressor process.
To see it in action, you will need a copy of Process Explorer from Sysinternals (it is hosted on a Microsoft web page). I have run Windows 10, in the year 2015, with 256MB of
RAM in a VM, and the Memory Compressor rails one core of the VM while it runs. There was sufficient memory to open Notepad :-) You can't do that today with the
bloated successors.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/performance/how-to-determine-the-appropriate-page-file-size-for-64-bit-versions-of-windows

The reason for not using the pagefile, is because that would wear the SSD
on these systems. Microsoft tells you to use an SSD now, rather than a HDD.

There are two memory saving features then. A Memory Compressor and a Pagefile.sys.
The Memory Compressor would be a preferred solution. The Pagefile, less so (for wear reasons).

The terminology in the above article, the Performance Counters can be accessed from
Perfmon.msc (executable). If you want to quantify how successful you are at forcing
the computer to page, you can use the Performance Monitor and load the performance
counters described in the article. And as far as I know, the Commit Limit is in Task Manager, in the location indicated in this picture.

[Picture]

https://i.postimg.cc/tg10mZvS/Win11-Task-Manager-memory.gif

To see it actually hit the pagefile.sys, the Performance Monitor pane would be best.

The compressor runs on at most one core, and it is a lightweight compressor. You could defeat it, without too much trouble (make a memory array filled
with random data would do it).

Like in Linux, the pagefile is also used for "spikes". If any of the
virtual memory system is not able to respond quickly enough, at that point
you will see a tiny usage of the pagefile.sys .

I've had a few freezes of Windows, related to memory consumption, so the
actual usage isn't perfect. (System Write Cache competes with greedy application, equals Freeze.)

You can use this program, if you want to test. The example command
is from my notes, from a while back. Haven't used this lately.
The 32-bit version of the program "testlimit.exe" would have a 32-bit application limit, while the 64-bit version can test your larger setups.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/testlimit

testlimit64.exe -d 1 -c 7168 # Leak 7168MB and do it 1MB at a time
# Task Manager will show a roughly
# diagonal line in the Memory pane

Summary: The beauty of a Memory Compressor, is it doesn't have the
same fragmentation problems the pagefile.sys had in WinXP.
The fragmentation performance of pagefile.sys in WinXP was terrible.
The new scheme is better.

Paul
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