Dual Channel memery question

droach75

New Member
Hi

i am about to get the ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe mobo, which looks very good and appealing in part because of the dual channel RAM option

my question is would it best

to have 2 strips of 512 MB to use in the dual channel mode

or 2 strips of 512 MB and 1 strip of 256MB (in the future it will be 3x512MB). this ram would be a mixture of PC 2700 (from my current PC) and PC 3200 (which i will buy soon),,,,i know it would be faster to have it all the same speed,,,but can u mix match???
 

Nephilim

VIP Member
Hi,

If you fill all three slots on your motherboard you will lose dual channel capability.

Personally, if I had two sticks of 512 already I'd stick with just the two and run them in dual channel mode. 1GB of RAM is a generous amount and unless you use certain apps that benefit from 1GB+ RAM you'll see better performance in dual channel mode for most common applications.
 

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
Personally, if I had two sticks of 512 already I'd stick with just the two and run them in dual channel mode. 1GB of RAM is a generous amount and unless you use certain apps that benefit from 1GB+ RAM you'll see better performance in dual channel mode for most common applications.
Now if you plan on playing UT2004 all day and refuse to use swapspace or you want to go into Premier DVD encoding 24x7 (at which point you're better off with 2GB) then I must concur, 1GB is plenty :)
 

droach75

New Member
Hi
thanks for the advice i went into town and bought the card at the weekend, and the sales guy explained the memory stuff.

the board went in easy (2 my old PC case), just waiting for my Volcano 12 fan and my new PC case, then i will fit it and turn the power the on.

i am keeping my hard drive, i have read that u need to reinstall windows XP and all your drivers. will i need to do this if i am keeping with my harddrive??
 

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
i am keeping my hard drive, I have read that u need to reinstall windows XP and all your drivers. will I need to do this if I am keeping with my harddrive??
In most cases, when making major system changes (ie., new chipset) you'll have to reinstall the OS :)
 
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