Dual channel VS single channel ram

blokewhoknowsnothingabouttech · May 28, 2018

Hi, I've recently bought some upgraded ram for my PC. However, I have accidentally bought 1x8GB ram rather than the 2x4GB ram I thought I was buying. The old ram was made up of two sticks. This means I will have to run the new ram in single channel instead of duel channel. Will I notice a performance decrease?

Cheers in advance,
Rob

Roland Of Gilead · May 28, 2018

Whether it's actually noticeable is one thing, and how you perceive it. There will be an increase in mem bandwidth with Dual over single, this will mostly impact benchmarks and synthetic tests. For most tasks you won't notice any difference.

You'll be fine.

geofelt · May 28, 2018

If you are using integrated graphics, single channel will hurt and you might want to return the ram.
Otherwise for actual app performance you are looking at minor difference in performance.

Roland Of Gilead · May 28, 2018

geofelt :

good point!

blokewhoknowsnothingabouttech · May 28, 2018

I should mention that I game a lot (Just Cause 3, minecraft, GTA V, ect...) and that I have a dedicated GPU

ElectrO_90 · May 28, 2018

Then you have no worries, 1 stick is fine.

blokewhoknowsnothingabouttech · May 29, 2018

Sorry, can anyone just quickly answer another query? Do I need to change anything in the BIOS to do with memory, if so would I need to make the changes before I switch to one stick or after?

ElectrO_90 · May 29, 2018

It should Auto set it, but can get a bit more complicated sometimes if you mix ram.
Just try it and see.

geofelt · May 29, 2018

If you are adding ram, realize that the second stick may not be compatible.

To try, put equal capacity on each channel.
If you has two 4gb sticks, put them in channel A and your new 8gb stick in channel B.
Your motherboard manual will tell you which ones are A and B.
If it works, you will run all ram in dual channel mode.

The gold standard for testing ram is memtest86.

If you have a problem, try increasing the ram voltage in a bios setting.
you should be able to complete a full pass with NO errors.

Pinhedd · May 29, 2018

blokewhoknowsnothingabouttech :

A single DIMM, especially a single DIMM with only a single rank on it, is bad mojo from a performance perspective.

The minimum recommended configuration is two ranks per channel because that permits one rank to be in refresh while the other rank on the same channel is selected. If you have only one rank period, your CPU will be entirely starved of memory during the refresh cycle.

You should aim to have at least two DIMMs, each with two ranks. Most manufacturers put one rank on each side of the DIMM, so look for a DIMM with 8 chips on each side and make sure that you have two of those, preferably matching.

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Dual channel VS single channel ram

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