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i7 960: Triple channel 3x2GB or Dual channel 4x2GB?

Tags:
  • Memory
  • RAM
  • Dual Channel
  • Intel i7
  • Triple Channel
Last response: in Memory
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September 7, 2014 7:25:20 AM

Hi everyone,
My current system has an i7 960 in an ASUS P6T board with 6x2GB of OCZ Platinum 1333MHz RAM.

Unfortunately, based on Memtest86 (23 errors overnight) and infrequent bluescreens, at least one of my sticks of RAM has failed.

I have been able to determine three of my sticks of RAM that function together in triple channel mode, stable overnight, 7 passes of memtest with no errors. Probably I can find at least one of the other three sticks of RAM that will work.

My motherboard manual says that either 3x2GB or 4x2GB are valid configurations (doesn't mention 5x2G).

My question is, which of these is likely to give me better performance for gaming? 6GB in triple channel mode, or 8GB in dual channel?

Thanks!

More about : 960 triple channel 3x2gb dual channel 4x2gb

Best solution

a b } Memory
September 7, 2014 7:33:16 AM

3x2GB will probably give you better performance, but you might need to get more RAM in the future since some modern games already require 6GB of memory.
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a b } Memory
September 7, 2014 7:35:16 AM

Get 12 GB (3x4GB) for better performance in recent games.
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September 7, 2014 8:06:31 AM

Thanks for the response guys.

Probably I wasn't clear enough; my main concern was what I should run now, with the hardware I have.

I am not sure I really want to upgrade / buy new RAM at the moment if what I have will work, as I might upgrade to a DDR4 platform in half a year or so when RAM prices drop and the lower-end CPUs come out. It seems pointless to purchase new DDR3 RAM with that so close on the horizon.
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a b } Memory
September 7, 2014 8:10:40 AM

bluejayek said:
Thanks for the response guys.

Probably I wasn't clear enough; my main concern was what I should run now, with the hardware I have.

I am not sure I really want to upgrade / buy new RAM at the moment if what I have will work, as I might upgrade to a DDR4 platform in half a year or so when RAM prices drop and the lower-end CPUs come out. It seems pointless to purchase new DDR3 RAM with that so close on the horizon.


In that case a 3x2GB setup would be fine.
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