Dual channel ram controller,all mouth-no trousers

[petrolhead2003]

This question has bugged me for a while.
S939 mobo's(dual channel ram) only enjoy a 3-5% better performance than single channel s754mobo's with similar speed cpu's.

In theory,you get twice the bandwidth,but in reality,this means next to nowt.

Why is this so?

 

[tweebel]

It's all part of the A64 memory system. Because the memory controller is on die latency's are really low. This means even the single channel A64 hardly ever has to wait for data from the RAM.
With a dual channel setup the bandwith doubles but obviously single channel already is so efficient with the A64 that the higher bandwith of dual channel doesn't really boost performance.

I think this might change if the cpu's get faster, then they might benefit from higher bandwith, at the moment they simply don't have to wait for the memory, pipelines are always filled.

 

[petrolhead2003]

BUT,whenever the difference between platform are discussed,people ALWAYS say that the s939 is so much better blah,blah dual channel blah,blah.

In reality,with processors today,it's worth next to ah heck all.
The same goes for AGP/PCI-express,in theory pci-express is better,in reality,it's also worth next to nowt in actual performance.Yet whenever pci is mentioned at's always 'increased bandwidth blah blah' used as a selling point claiming much better performance.

It just goes to show that buying the latest might give you a slight performance increase(3-5%),nothing more.
Is it worth the extra cost?
Not in my opinion.

 

[jammydodger]

Socket 939 is mainly considered better because it is more future proof than socket 754 (socket 754 is being phased out).
PCI-express isnt need right now, but all future high end graphics cards are going to be PCI-e so it is usefull to have a motherboard that supports it.