Here is my two year old PC.

INTEL® CORE™ I7-6700K Processor 8M Cache 4GHZ Base 4.2GHZ Turbo FC-LGA1151 Retail Box Skylake
Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H100I V2 CPU Cooler System LGA1151/1150/1155/1156/AM2/AM3/FM1/FM2
ASUS Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Z170 Skylake DDR4 3PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 1PCI CrossFireX/SLI USB3.1 Motherboard
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series F4-2133C15D-16GVR DDR4 2133MHZ 16GB(8GBX2) Memory Kit
MSI GeForce GTX 970 TwinFrozr V 1140/1279MHZ 4GB 7GHZ GDDR5 HDMI 2x DVI DisplayPort PCI-E Video Card
Corsair CS850M CS Modular 80 Plus Gold Certified 850WATT 12V Power Supply Unit
Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Full Tower EATX Black Case 3x 5.25EXT 6x 3.5INT 2x USB3.0 No PS
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Edition 64Bit DVD SP1 OEM *for NCIX PC Only*
Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA3 64MB Cache 3.5in Internal Hard Drive
ASUS DRW-24F1ST 24X SATA DVD Writer Black

I run both P3DV4 and XP11V11.2.

I am building my XP experience around Ortho Photo scenery + OSM overlays + UHD and HD mesh.

- I have my settings very high, and I like it that way.

- I have now found that this combo is hugely demanding on XP11 and from what I read I should look at expanding my RAM.

My problem is I don't exactly know what I should do? Do I have to have all four memory modules exactly the same, or can I buy two other 8gig modules that might be higher MHZ and such and mix them with my existing two modules?

Advice on how to expand to 32 gigs would be very welcome before I swipe the credit card. My preference it to only have to buy two more modules, keeping my money in my wallet.

Bryan

ps I run 10 HDDs with my data for my sims and other priorities like photo work, digital movies etc.

Edited May 14, 20188 yr by 1st fltsimguy

11 hours ago, 1st fltsimguy said:

I have now found that this combo is hugely demanding on XP11 and from what I read I should look at expanding my RAM.

Have you checked to see how much RAM your system is actually using whilst running XP? Task Manager is the simplest way to see if you're using all of the 16GB.

when I went from 8GB to 16GB I was careful to find the exact same kit as the one I already had. Go the second kit used on ebay. I have never looked back.

On 5/15/2018 at 4:20 AM, vortex681 said:

Have you checked to see how much RAM your system is actually using whilst running XP? Task Manager is the simplest way to see if you're using all of the 16GB.

Yes, I am hitting about 15 gigs and I only have 16.

I uses systems just use more ram if you have it.  I had 8 and both P3D v4 and XP11 were nearly using 8 (plus some background apps).  Now I have 16 and the system uses about 12 max.  

I guess if you're at 15 used I'd buy 16 more