[Help] RAM Questions

I generally consider myself a bit above the crowd when it comes to computer hardware, but I have come to a bit of a conondrum. I am looking to upgrade my RAM (the first in a series of updates, that will happen as the cash flows). I currently have one stick of 512MB RAM (DDR400). I am undecided between the two options:

Buy ONE additional stick, and run the two sticks in Dual-Channel mode. I'll gave a total of 1GB of RAM
Buy TWO addition sticks, and have the advantage of 1.5GB of RAM.

I realize the speed of the first option is great, but with Longhorn on the way, the second option is also good-looking (noteworthy, I plan to upgrade to 2GB once I get an nForce4 board with 4 DIMM's and run dual-channel anyways). What does the community suggest?

#298627

Buy the two sticks; I bet the speed difference won't be noticable.

#298631

well, this really depends on what you want to do.

first of all, moving to 1gb is going to be a great move in general. but dual channel mode doesn't yield much of a gain on certain platforms, e.g. nforce2. dual channel has more of an effect on intel platforms, and a much bigger effect on a64 systems.

second, 1.5gb sounds good, but some benchmarks have shown that performance drops after 1gb, unless you're doing things like photoshop, etc. that require lots of ram.

so, in short, it depends on your system and what you do on the computer.

#298819

If you buy the additional ram, you need to make sure its the exact same ram for dual channel to work. IE Same speed's and brand(latency...etc).

As for option 1/2, what kind of system do you have? Intel or AMD? If you have an Intel system you're better off buying the second 512mb of ram and using dual channel, as for the AMD dual channel is not really needed performance wise as the intel system is. But if you do have an AMD system then I suggest option 2.

#298845

not on topic, but how would I go about making my ram dual channel?

#298847

It all depends on wiether your motherboard and ram support it. What motherboard do you have?

#298852

not on topic, but how would I go about making my ram dual channel?

get a dual channel kit (i.e. matched pair of ram) and put them in the correct slots. this depends on the mobo. on my abit nf7-s, it's slots 2 and 3.

#298874

One doesn't really need a 'matched pair'. If your BIOS settigns allow for advanced settings, then you should be able to set the latency settings. As long as the latency settings are the same for both sticks, dual-channel should work fine.

Lucky for me, the price of the particular stick of RAM that I have has dropped by $35 since my first purchase (GeIL ValueRAM with aluminum heat spreader... DDR440, baby! Who woulda thunk an AthlonXP 1800+ could stay below 45°C load after several hours, clocked at 2.2Ghz... ON STOCK AIR! Yes, it's a JIUHB.)

#298880