Opinions on Dual Channel or More Memory

2048Megabytes

2048Megabytes

Active Member
I just recently purchased a 2 gigabyte PC2-6400 module of RAM for a computer I am building. I presently have only two memory slots on my motherboard occupied with two 1 gigabyte modules of PC2-6400 memory in dual-channel mode.

Should I take the 3 gigabytes of RAM in single channel mode at PC2-6400 speeds or 2 gigabytes of RAM in dual-channel mode?

The game I use is Flight Simulator X. What would I likely see better performance with?

I am not going to buy anything else to upgrade my RAM presently so that is not an option.
 
That game doesnt need anything near 2 gigs of ram. I've also heard that 2 would be faster but I don't have anything to back it up.
 
^ I've heard that too but also don't have anything to back that up...i know 1 chip will bottle neck more than 2 chips and you said 2x2gb chips so 4gb ftw :D
 
The User's Manual from Gigabyte recommends using "memory of the same capacity, brand, speed, and chips", but it does not say that you should never use memory of different capacities. I would try installing the 2 gig module alongside one of the 1 gig modules and see if it will recognize the 3 gig total, stay in dual channel mode, and run without errors. If you have stability issues in this configuration, I would go back to the two 1 gig sticks you currently have.

Andrew
 
In almost all cases, capacity > speed/bandwidth. I honestly doubt single-channel would result in any performance drop, especially if you're talking about the computer in your sig - the other parts will be a bottleneck far before the memory bandwidth. I'm 99.99% certain that even if the performance suffers, you won't even notice it, the effect is so small.
 
^hack is right, in fact even when i upgraded to more ram the only game i noticed a boost in was crysis, with a whawwpingg 6 Extra FPS!!! Every other game stayed the same or droped a few frames.

Single channel/dual, like tiwas said before, you won't notice the difference.
 
Thanks for the useful information that I got from everyone. My Gigabyte motherboard doesn't have problems running with the different types of RAM I experimented with.

I was going to use PC2 5300 memory in combination with PC2 6400 memory in the new system I was building but I decided against it since I don't want to slow RAM speed to DDR2 667 speeds.

So I put in a single 2 gigabyte module of DDR2 800 memory in to my present system and I haven't noticed any difference in performance in single channel mode as Hackapelite stated.

The new system will use my old 2 gigabytes of PC2 6400 RAM in dual-channel mode. I will just keep my present single 2 gigabyte module of DDR2 800 memory until I feel like buying another memory module.
 
toolcrib said:
The User's Manual from Gigabyte recommends using "memory of the same capacity, brand, speed, and chips", but it does not say that you should never use memory of different capacities. I would try installing the 2 gig module alongside one of the 1 gig modules and see if it will recognize the 3 gig total, stay in dual channel mode, and run without errors. If you have stability issues in this configuration, I would go back to the two 1 gig sticks you currently have.

Andrew
Click to expand...

Thats contradictory...
 
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