▷ How to know how much ram memory my motherboard supports ✅

How to know how much RAM my motherboard supports can save us more than a hassle when deciding to expand our hardware without buying the full pack, we are talking about motherboard, processor (CPU) and RAM. Every motherboard has a limit of installable RAM, and also a limit on the frequency at which this RAM is able to work. In this article we will try to find out the maximum figures that our motherboard supports.

Index of contents

And the truth is that knowing how much memory the motherboard supports is quite simple, as long as we know the model of the motherboard we have, which is almost always the most problematic thing to find out. So let's go little by little and try to make all possible considerations.

Why we are interested in installing more RAM memory

Do we really need more RAM than we have? This is the first question we should ask ourselves. RAM is one of the main hardware components of our equipment. Thanks to it, the operating system can load the programs that are being used in it, their processes and the instructions that will be executed by the processor.

The more RAM memory, the greater number of programs and the more workload we can carry out on our PC. Of course we would have to take into account the power of our processor, but hey, that's a different question than this. In any case, once we exceed the memory used by the system, more programs will not obtain better performance, that is, if we have 8 GB and we still have plenty of space, no more GB than we install our PC will not go faster.

Currently, if we have Windows 10 installed on our PC, and in its 64-bit version (we hope so), it is always recommended to have more than 4 GB of RAM. Special in this 64-bit version, it will be better to have at least 8 GB, since the system itself at half load usually uses a lot of space.

What depends the maximum memory that we can install

Each motherboard has a limit of RAM that can be installed. And not only in quantity, but also the type of memory, for example, if it is DDR3, DDR4 or any other DDR. But we will also have a limit in terms of memory frequency, that is, if for example we install a 4000 MHz RAM and the board supports only 2400 MHz, then our memory will not work at the maximum speed.

In this way, the factors that influence the amount, type and frequency of memory that we can install will be the following:

• Manufacturer and model of motherboard: in the market there are many manufacturers of motherboard, and each of them creates a product according to performance and price. The processor: RAM memory communicates directly with the processor. It is true that the chipset on the motherboard will determine which processor to install, but in turn the processor will determine how much RAM to install, since it is the one that addresses the available memory cells. There are two processor manufacturers on the market: Intel and AMD. Each of them has several generations of processors, and with different powers. So we will also need to know in detail what processors we have to know how much memory we can install on our motherboard. The chipset: The chipset limits not the amount of memory, but the speed at which it can work using JEDEC profiles. Although this is better treated in a separate article.

In the processor specifications, a speed limit for RAM is also imposed. This limit does not imply that we cannot install faster memories, since this "official" limit is not an obstacle to obtain better performance from a system with a RAM memory of for example 4000 MHz, despite the fact that the processor only supports 2666 Mhz.

Generic capabilities by platform and chipset

This information cannot be fulfilled to the letter, because depending on the DIMM slots that each board has, it will accept more or less RAM memory. In any case, we will be able to know the maximum amount of memory depending on the socket that we have installed on our PC.

In all cases they will be DDR4 RAM memories:

Intel platform

• LGA 1151 socket: (6th and 7th generation): 64 GB (4 DIMM slots) LGA 1151 socket: (8th and 9th generation): 64 GB (4 DIMM slots) LGA 2066 socket: 128 GB (8 DIMM slots) Socket LGA 2011 V3: 128GB (8 DIMM slots)

AMD platform

• Socket AM4: 64 GB (8 DIMM slots) Socket TR4: 128 GB (4 DIMM slots)

How to know which motherboard I have (quick option)

Well, the first thing we will have to do is know what motherboard we have installed on our computer. If in your case you already know the brand and model, it will not be necessary for you to follow this point.

If this is not your case, you will need to find out what model of motherboard you have, so you can also know the chipset you have to install and, consequently, what processor it supports and how much memory you can install. Did you get it?

At this point, we will have two options. The first is to dust off the box of our motherboard (if we buy the PC by parts), there somewhere the model of motherboard we have will be able to. Hopefully we will also have the user manual in which the topic of RAM will come. The second option is to install a program that tells us what hardware we have on our PC.

We will choose this second option. Well, the first program that we are going to install is one of the CCleaner family, don't panic! We are not going to do PC cleaning. This program is called Piriform Speccy. We know you are lazy looking for it, so click here to download and install it. In any case, there are many others available on the Internet, for example, Aida 64, Everest, HWiNFO, CPU-Z, etc.

On the first installation screen, disable the option to install CCleaner. Once installed, we will open it and automatically collect all the information about our team. we are going to go to the section " Summary " or " Motherboard " to know our motherboard.

We will have extremely important information on this screen. In " manufacturer " and " model " we will have the make and model of the plate, this is what we want. But we can also find out what type of CPU chipset it has, the “ Southbridge model ” chipset, BIOS, etc.

We could also go to the "RAM" section to find out how many slots our board has.

The second program that we could use is CPU-Z, which is capable of giving us the name of our board and some other features. It is another very simple program that gives us a lot of information. We can download it from its official website.

We have information about the socket available, and the number of slots that our board has, so we could already go looking because with the previous small list we would know how much we will have available.

In our example we have the following board: Asus B150 Pro Gaming AURA and we already know in advance that its capacity is 64 GB. According to LGA 1151 socket and 4 memory slots.

What processor do I have (for being completists)

We already know the name of our motherboard, we could already know how much RAM it supports, but we are going to do things well, and we are also going to know how much our CPU supports. If we are not planning to buy a new processor, this information could be important.

We use this same Speccy software to find out what our CPU is. Let's go to the " CPU " section.

Thus we will know its full name, number of cores, technology threads and the generation to which it belongs. We are interested in your name.

We could also have used CPU-Z again which will also give us all this and more information. In fact, it specializes in this type of information.

In our example we have the following processor: Intel Core i5-6500

How to know how much RAM my motherboard supports

The time has come, we already have everything, name of the plate and name of the processor. Now the wisest thing will be to use our Internet friend. It is not about us saying how much memory all the CPUs or all the boards support, but about learning to do it yourself and apply it to any case.

Maximum motherboard memory

Let's start with our motherboard. Let's go to the official website of the manufacturer of the plate. Or directly put the whole name in San-Google. Searched manufacturers' pages can also do this job.

We will look at its specifications. The list of specifications is practically identical in all manufacturers. We will identify this information in the memory section.

We see then that our motherboard has 4 DIMM slots that support up to 64 GB of DDR4 RAM at a speed of 2133 MHz and in Dual Channel. We already know something new, on this board we will only reach a RAM speed of 2133 MHz.

Let's look at examples for other major brands:

Maximum processor memory

Now we are going to see the information that the manufacturer gives us about the memory that the processor supports. So we go to Intel or AMD and look for our CPU.

There we have the specifications of our 6th generation i5-6500. It supports a total of 64 GB of DDR4 RAM at 2133 MHz and also DRR3L (for laptops).

For AMD, you may only find the supported memory frequency and version. So for maximum capacity, we will listen to the motherboard itself.

In any case, we have the necessary information. Now we will have to see which is the one that more limits the capacity, if the processor or the board. If our PC is balanced, it will mean that both the motherboard and the CPU support exactly the same RAM, as is our case. So there would be no point in installing hypothetical 16GB modules in each slot, in fact, nor would it detect it. With speed the same thing happens, this chipset + BIOS does not support more than 2133 MHz frequency, so installing more does not make sense.

What if we have a laptop or a PC already assembled by a brand?

If we are in the case of having a PC mounted by a manufacturer, in which we find a strange motherboard and name and model not known, the best thing will be to directly enter the model of our PC in the manufacturer's search engine to see its specifications. In this regard, we may even need the specific model number, as manufacturers often make various specifications for each family or model they put on the market.

The CPU-Z or Speccy method will work for us practically on all occasions, however.

Let's look for example a laptop not too new to see what information we can find. Dell Latitude E5440.

There we clearly have its specifications. This model has two SO-DIMM slots that support DDR3 and DDR3L memories at a speed of 1600 MHz and a maximum of 16 GB. So we can buy two modules of 8 GB maximum.

Conclusion about how to know how much RAM my motherboard supports

We believe that listing generic chipsets and memory boards that they support here makes little sense, and this is why we have provided useful information so that everyone knows their hardware and can obtain information about it with the best tool: Internet.

Have you understood everything well? If you have any doubt, or any problem to obtain the information you need, leave us a comment. If you prefer, you can enter our Hardware Forum and open a topic with your questions so that we can all help each other.

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