I'm using the 32Bit Version of Windows XP Home. From what I understand
WinXP can't see 4G of ram and is limited to 3Gs.

My question is:
To achieve the 3G can I put 4G into my motherboard and it will read
as 3G without any problems? Or do I need to put in a 2G and a 1G ram
stick to make the 3Gs?

Also, is it better to use two 2G sticks of ram to make 4G or one 4G stick of ram?
(Does it even matter?)


(edit - additional information)
The motherboard I'm using is an:
Asus P7H55-M PRO Socket 1156 Intel H55 Chipset Dual-Channel DDR3 2133(O.C.)/1333/1066/800Mhz Gigabit LAN 8 Channel HD Audio 1x PCI Express 2.0 x16 Slots & 6x SATA 3.0Gb/s, 6x USB 2.0 Micro ATX

The hardware will see and report all 4Gb but some will be used for mapping, depending primarily on your graphics solution. Some systems have up to 3.6Gb available for use, some as little as 2.8.

Your motherboard supports Dual-channel memory architecture so it would be best to use pairs (either 2 or 4 sticks) of RAM. Your system will work with 1 or 3 sticks, but will not take full advantage of Dual-channel's increased performance.

If me, I would use 2 x 2Gb for 4Gb. In this way, should you later decide to switch to 64-bit Windows 7, you will have slots available to increase your RAM. And on that note, you have modern hardware but you are hindering performance and compromising security by using a 10 year old operating system that was designed to support DOS era (20 year old) hardware.

Thanks for the advice, I'll pick up two 2G ram sticks later today.

There are two reasons I'm using WinXP even though it is outdated.

1) I already have a WinXP machine ready to use.
2) Some programs I need to use don't like to run easily in Win7.

I have nothing against using Win7... it just isn't the solution I
need right now.

In the near future I'll probably upgrade the OS to Win7 and add
even more ram. For now I consider that computer to be a sort of
special WinXP-task machine.

I've got an old 486 that still works as well that I sometimes use so
I don't mind using software/hardware that is no longer cutting edge.

... Dang now I feel old...