Memory for a Gigabyte 970A-DS3P Motherboard

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I needed to determine how much memory could be added to a Windows 10 system. I didn't know the model of the motherboard in the system, so I used a Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) to determine the motherboard manufacturer and model. To run a WMIC command, you can open a command prompt window.

C:\Users\Public>wmic baseboard get manufacturer,product,model,version
Manufacturer                   Model  Product    Version
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.         970A-DS3P  To be filled by O.E.M.


C:\Users\Public>

From the output of the WMIC command I could see that the manufacturer was Gigabyte Technology Co. and the model number was 970A-DS3P. To determine the amount of memory already in the system from the command prompt, I issued the systeminfo command and piped it's output into the find command to see just the memory currently in the system.

C:\Users\Public>systeminfo | find "Total Physical Memory"
Total Physical Memory:     16,349 MB

C:\Users\Public>

I could see the system had 16 GB of memory in it and the manufacturer's specification page for the 970A-DS3P motherboard stated the motherboard could support up to 64 GB of memory, but according to the product specifications page of the 970A-DS3P manual provided by the manufacturer, it can only support a maximum of 32 GB of memory. That pages also has the following information on memory speeds supported:

Support for DDR3 2000(O.C.)/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
   * To support a DDR3 1866 MHz (and above) memory, you must install an AM3+ CPU first

According to the Crucial Memory Compatible Memory for GIGABYTE GA-970A-DS3P page, the motherboard can accomodate a maximum of 32 GB of unbuffered memory.

Slots: 4 (2 banks of 2)
Max Unbuffered DDR3 SDRAM: 32GB 240-pin DDR3 DIMM Banking: 4 (2 banks of 2)

The motherboard manual showed that 4 memory slots were present on the motherboard labelled from right to left on the motherboard diagram as DDR3_1, DDR3_3, DDR3_2, and DDR3_4. To see whether there were four memory modules of 4 GB each or two memory modules of 8 GB each in the motherboard, I issued the command wmic memorychip get capacity and then wmic memorychip list brief.

C:\Users\Public>wmic memorychip get capacity
Capacity
8589934592
8589934592


C:\Users\Public>wmic memorychip list brief
Capacity    DeviceLocator  MemoryType  Name             Tag                TotalWidth
8589934592  Node0_Dimm1    24          Physical Memory  Physical Memory 1  64   
8589934592  Node0_Dimm3    24          Physical Memory  Physical Memory 3  64   


C:\Users\Public>

I could see that there were two memory modules of 8 GB each already in the system. The user's guide states:

The four DDR3 memory sockets are divided into two channels and each channel has two memory sockets as following:

Channel A: DDR3_2, DDR3_4
Channel B: DDR3_1, DDR3_3

To get further details for the memory, I issued the command wmic memorychip list full.

C:\Users\Public>wmic memorychip list full


BankLabel=Node0_Bank0
Capacity=8589934592
DataWidth=64
Description=Physical Memory
DeviceLocator=Node0_Dimm1
FormFactor=8
HotSwappable=
InstallDate=
InterleaveDataDepth=
InterleavePosition=
Manufacturer=Kingston
MemoryType=24
Model=
Name=Physical Memory
OtherIdentifyingInfo=
PartNumber=9905471-078.A
PositionInRow=
PoweredOn=
Removable=
Replaceable=
SerialNumber=71168A10
SKU=
Speed=800
Status=
Tag=Physical Memory 1
TotalWidth=64
TypeDetail=16512
Version=


BankLabel=Node0_Bank0
Capacity=8589934592
DataWidth=64
Description=Physical Memory
DeviceLocator=Node0_Dimm3
FormFactor=8
HotSwappable=
InstallDate=
InterleaveDataDepth=
InterleavePosition=
Manufacturer=Kingston
MemoryType=24
Model=
Name=Physical Memory
OtherIdentifyingInfo=
PartNumber=9905471-078.A
PositionInRow=
PoweredOn=
Removable=
Replaceable=
SerialNumber=77168A10
SKU=
Speed=800
Status=
Tag=Physical Memory 3
TotalWidth=64
TypeDetail=16512
Version=





C:\Users\Public>

Other wmic memorychip commands that can be used to obtain details on the memory in a system are shown below.

C:\Users\Public>wmic memorychip get BankLabel,DeviceLocator,MemoryType,TypeDetail,Capacity,Speed
BankLabel    Capacity    DeviceLocator  MemoryType  Speed  TypeDetail
Node0_Bank0  8589934592  Node0_Dimm1    24          800    16512
Node0_Bank0  8589934592  Node0_Dimm3    24          800    16512


C:\Users\Public>wmic memorychip get banklabel, manufacturer, partnumber, speed, MemoryType, devicelocator
BankLabel    DeviceLocator  Manufacturer  MemoryType  PartNumber     Speed
Node0_Bank0  Node0_Dimm1    Kingston      24          9905471-078.A  800
Node0_Bank0  Node0_Dimm3    Kingston      24          9905471-078.A  800


C:\Users\Public>

The part number for the existing memory was 9905471-078.A. The Passmark Memory Benchmarks page for Kingston 9905471-078.A00LF 8GB had the following information for that memory part number:

Kingston 9905471-078.A00LF 8GB
Description: PC3-12800, 1.5V, 1.35V , CAS Supported: 6 7 8 9 10 11
Other names: Kingston 9905471-078.A00LF
Memory First Benchmarked: 2016-12-29

The description states that the memory module is PC3-12800, which equates to DDR3-1600 according to the Wikipedia DDR3 SDRAM modules table.

NameChipBus
StandardModuleClock rate (Mhz) Clock rate (MHz)Transfer rate (MT/s)Bandwidth (MBB/s)
DDR3-1600PC3-128002008001600 12800

You can also obtain some information about a system's memory using the Microsoft Windows Task Manager application. You can start the Task Manager by hitting the Ctrl-Alt-Del keys and seleting Task Manager. When it opens, select the Performance tab and then click on Memory , which will provide a display like the one below.

Windows Task
Manager memory info

Related articles:

  1. Obtaining a command prompt in Windows 10
  2. Determining Motherboard Manufacturer and Model on a Windows System

References

  1. GA-970A-DS3P User's Manual Rev. 1001