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I have an old dual core intel cpu desktop with 2GB RAM made of 4 x 512MB sticks. I want to upgrade to 4GB RAM and have been looking for 4 x 1GB sticks. But I was wondering if I could also achieve the upgrade by using 2 x 2GB sticks and leaving 2 of the ram sockets empty. Is this possible to do?

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    Check your motherboard documentation. There may be RAM density limitation.
    – sawdust
    Jan 20, 2016 at 2:02
  • I have to agree with @sawdust, you really need to find the documentation for your motherboard and go with what it says is possible.
    – misha256
    Jan 20, 2016 at 2:11
  • 2x2gb will probably be more expensive than 4x1gb. Check your documentation, but you maybe able to use 2x512MB and 1x2gb (or 2x1gb).
    – ThunderFrame
    Jan 20, 2016 at 7:57
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    @ThunderFrame I actually thought it would be the other way around but I haven't looked into costs recently. My big recommendation would be getting the 4gb (if supported) because if he chooses to further expand then he saves a memory slot.
    – Griffin
    Jan 20, 2016 at 14:38
  • @Griffin True, but 2x2GB sticks in dual channel will give better performance than a 4GB stick in single channel.
    – spherical_dog
    Jan 20, 2016 at 16:54

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I was wondering if I could also achieve the upgrade by using 2 x 2GB DIMMs

Yes. Barring any interfering constraints (such as incompatabilities, unavailability on the market, etc etc) you can use 2x2GiB as well as 4x 1GiB.

In most desktop motherboards 2x 2GiB will even be slightly faster since the memory controller has to drive fewer ranks.

The three questions which you really want to use though are:

  1. Is my motherboard compatible with the 2GiB DIMMs (almost always the answer is yes. But do check when you use a very old motherboard).
  2. Do I want the option to expand later (in which case leaving two DIMM socket free is a good thing). (Assuming you can expand beyond 4GiB total, you either need a 64 bits CPU or one which supports PEA. And even if the CPU suppors PEA you also want an OS to run which supports it. E.g. BSDs, or Linux, but not a modern windows.)
  3. What is economical. Larger memory used to be more expensive, but these days it might actually be hard to find 1GiB DIMMs. And hard to find usually means more expensive.
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  • If this is a motherboard with 4x512MiB RAM currently, the motherboard might not even support a 64-bit CPU, in which case expanding beyond 4 GiB is pretty much an academic exercise.
    – user
    Jan 20, 2016 at 14:53
  • True. I should add that point 4 or as 3B
    – Hennes
    Jan 20, 2016 at 16:23

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