1g ram dual channel or 1.5g ram without?

[kusazero]

i have a nf2 mobo, in the manual, it says dual channel will only be turned on when i have 2 sticks of ram. seeing that ram price is decreasing almost daily, i am thinking about adding another stick of 512 to my 1g ram. will i get any benefit while forfeiting this so called dual channel? what does it do anyway?

my pc is mainly for world of warcraft, games, BT and internet, rarely play FPS, so, my videocard is not top notch.

comments please, thanks

 

[Lemon13]

no, it doubles the troughput of your ram

200MHz * 64Bit (Single Channel) * 2 (Double Data Rate) = 26500 MBit/s = 3200 MB/s

200MHz * 128Bit (Dual Channel) * 2 (Double Data Rate) = 51200 MBit/s = 6400 MB/s

 

[cdogg]

Double-check your mobo's manual. Most say that you have to have at least 2 sticks for dual-channel, but many can run 3 or even 4 sticks in dual-channel.

Your CPU makes a big difference. Newer Intel P4 CPU's and AMD Athlon 64 CPU's heavily rely on dual-channel for optimum performance. The Athlon XP and any P4 that came before the 800MHz FSB didn't need it as much.

If we had more information about your hardware (mobo model # and CPU), we could give you a more detailed suggestion...

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
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[DragonQ0105]

Newer Intel P4 CPU's and AMD Athlon 64 CPU's heavily rely on dual-channel for optimum performance"

Is that because of the built-in Memory Controller? Or is that just AMD64s....

 

[cdogg]

Yes, the memory controller has everything to do with it. The newer one you are referring to is only in the Athlon 64's.

The Athlon 64 uses what is called HyperTransport. Hypertransport doesn't really have a FSB, per se. It starts at a reference speed controlled by the BIOS and can move up and down on the fly. With speeds getting as high as 1GHz, you can see why dual-channel is needed.

The P4 800MHz FSB versions also need it. Here, the FSB is locked at 200MHz quad-pumped. Without dual-channel, you are likely forced to run memory at 400MHz or slower, which causes massive latency problems.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
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[pmonett]

I agree with cdogg, and I would stick to dual-channel performance over pure size of RAM. 1GB of RAM is good enough for gaming anyway - at the moment. Take care, most mobos will deactivate dual channel if an uneven number of RAM sticks are present. That will make your benchmarks take a nosedive !

Pascal.

 

[garebo]

Seems like another way of putting all that is that you are better off with 1 gig of ram.
Even without the dual-channel issue i dont think you would see much if any difference between having 1 gig and 1.5 gigs of ram, unless you were into very heavy video editing or other things like that, that take up a lot of ram.
For most of the things we do in win xp, 512 mb to 1 gig is enough and 1 gig is enough for sure.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[paparazi]

I would pretty much go along with everything that has been said.
Dual channel on an Nforce2 motherboards only improves performance between 1 and 3% but any improvement is worth having.
In you case adding another 512mb will have no benefit at all, you system simply isn't coming even close to using half of what you already have so adding more memory is pointless.
Infact if this additional module isn't exactly the same as the others already fitted it could have the reverse effect and have a negative impact on performance.
Martin


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Participate and help others.

 

[cdogg]

Right, good point Martin. I didn't catch it earlier that we were talking about an Nforce2 mobo. That's why I explained the differences between the Athlon 64, Athlon XP, and P4's in general. Dual-channel impacts each type of CPU differently.

The Athlon XP's aren't affected by it much at all, as you pointed out.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[kusazero]

wow, wasnt expecting these many reply, my mobo is nforce2, and cpuis althon 2500xp, OCed at 3000xp. the mobo only have 3 memory slots, and in the manual, it only says that dual chanle will only activate when there are even numbers of module present.

but, ram is so cheap now, so, bottom line, which would give me more performance?

and thank you so much for the info.

 

[garebo]

Best to leave it like it is, for the cost of the extra ram you wont get any real boost in performance.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[cdogg]

It depends on the applications you are running. For example, there are a few examples where extra RAM might make a difference (certain games like Everquest, Adobe applications/rendering, etc).

There aren't too many where you will notice that much of an increase, and since your CPU's FSB is limited to 400MHz, it doesn't really matter if you have dual channel or not (the 1-3% paparazi mentioned above would likely be the same whether you went with extra RAM or stayed with dual-channel).

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
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[garebo]

Thats why i am saying to forget about spending the money on the ram, spend it on something else you might want, like a pci tv card, for example.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[cdogg]

The key is still to look at the applications you are running. I've read that in certain games, for example, bumping system RAM from 512MB to 2GB can increase performance by as much as 20-25%, since many role-playing versions need space in main memory to run character instances (there can be thousands running at any given time).

So it "depends"!



~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884