I just bought 2x1gb kit of mushkin for my intel mobo. on intial start up it said ram was not equal amounts and will run at lowest of the two. I go into bios and i have them in the right slows (the black and blue next to each other). It recognizes each slot as 1024 yet says its running in single channel...

queestion is will this effect performance?? doest dual channel run better?

All of the MB I have seen you need to have the ram chips in the same color slots for dual channel.

the sticks either need to be in the two blue slots or the two black slots, not one in each colour. m'boards are designed so the two colours of the 4 ram slots indicate how to set up dual channel

Some are, some aren't. You need to check your MB manual. Sometimes the MB manuals have it backwards, so if it doesn't work in dual channel the way the manual says to arrange it, try the other way.