Author Topic: Dual Channel Memory (Read 292 times)

tapakeg · « **on:** January 28, 2006, 11:57:32 PM »

I bought a motherboard and a stick of 1Gb of ram.

The motherboard supports dual channel memory, but only when 2 sticks are installed in the mobo.

"The GA-KU8-939" supports the dual channel technology. When the dual channel technology is activated the bandwith of memory bus will be double the original one"

"Dual channel mode will not be enabled if only one DDR memory module is installed"

I am ordering an identical stick of ram to activate the dual channel. Besides doubling the size of the ram, what will be faster? Why do I need 2 sticks to activate the double speed memory bus? Will it make a noticable difference?

Tapakeg

buzkill · « **Reply #1 on:** January 29, 2006, 06:40:24 AM »

FROM WHAT I'VE READ YOU ARE BETTER OFF STAYING WITH SINGLE CHANNEL IF YOU WANT SPEED

Socks · « **Reply #2 on:** January 29, 2006, 07:58:58 AM »

As far as I know, what you're doing is allowing the RAM modules to split up the load. It's hard to explain it exactly, and I don't know the exact process of it, but when it comes down to it being faster than a single stick of RAM is that it splits up the workload, or alternates it between the two of them.

Depending on the RAM you have, and the various speeds/dual-channeling possibilities, you could potentially see a difference in having 1 stick of 1GB of RAM, or having 2 sticks of 512 but dual-channeled. Doubling your amount of RAM will be a noticeable difference enough.

Kev367th · « **Reply #3 on:** January 29, 2006, 11:24:43 AM »

You will see an overall increase in memory bandwidth using a dual channel setup.
As for double, unlikely. Theoretical bandwidth is doubled, but in reality its probably closer to 10%-25% depending on RAM timings.

You can't go far wrong adding the extra memory anyways. Never have enough RAM or Disk Space.

I just recently went up to 2 x 1Gb sticks mem, nice to be able to cache whole game and skins @ 1024x1024.

eagl · « **Reply #4 on:** January 29, 2006, 02:05:20 PM »

You can get theoretical memory bandwidth increase up to around 40%, but in actual use you could see up to 5% speedup in games, benchmarks, and normal use.

buzkill is pretty much wrong. single channel is slower, and I have never heard anything about dual channel being a bad thing. Occasionally some odd memory and mobo combinations will result in dual channel simply not working, but it always either defaults to single channel or just won't boot up at all so that's pretty easy to troubleshoot. If you put in the second stick of memory and it works, which it should do 99% of the time, then you'll see the benefits.

With AMD mobos and 4 sticks of memory (instead of just 2), you may see a slight decrease in memory speed. But that's only an issue if you're using 4 memory sticks. If you're just using 2, then you won't have to worry about that at all.

My main rig (amd athlon 64 3800) uses 2x1 gig sticks and it's nice and fast, no problems with memory whatsoever.

tapakeg · « **Reply #5 on:** January 29, 2006, 08:03:18 PM »

You guys rock,

Thanks