Deciding between 2gig single channel and 1 gig dual channel

[rhayvenmd]

Howdy all!

Had a little question come up, thought I would see what others thought. I currently have a Shuttle AN35N mobo running 2 x 512mb in dual channel at the moment. I've recently decided to upgrade to 2 gigs of ram total for the purpose of increasing frame rates in World of Warcraft (one of the few games where ram = everything, nowadays). I would like to go with what is most cost effective for this particular purpose.

UNFORTUNATELY, this particular board only has 3 slots to it, not 4. I am considering buying one 1 gig stick to place in the system, thus saving some money (but throwing me out of dual channel). What all this boils down to is: for gaming, such as in World of Warcraft, would there be enough of a difference to justify paying more to keep the dual channel for 2 gigs (and chucking the old ram) or would it be just as effective to throw an extra stick in there and run the 2 gigs single channel?

I cannot stress enough that I am looking for answers on this particular application of the ram (not all the other stuff under the sun...obviously, this system is for limping through as long as I can get it to go). Here are my specs in case anyone feels that necessary:

-Athlon 2500+ XP (FSB bumped up to 200, so system recognizes as 3200+ XP
-Shuttle AN35N Ultra mobo
-1 gig of Mushkin 3200mhz DDR ram (currently running in dual channel)
-74 gig WD Raptor SATA drive
-80 gig IDE POS Random Storage drive
-ATI Radeon X800 GTO (16 pipelines unlocked)

Thanks!

 

[choirbass]

hm. i cant offer much help as far as WoW goes, but dual channel by itself wont offer much practical improvement except in benchmarks (especially with an older s462 system). 2GB by itself will be definetly a noticable upgrade (in both single or dual channel). only go for dual channel 2GB, if its not much more expensive at all than single channel 2GB in your situation. ($10 difference, for instance)

 

[Gravemind123]

If single channel is cheaper by a decent amount, I'd stick with it. Investing a lot in DDR which is outdated and basically never reusable in a new system isn't really a good choice. From benchmarks and personal experience, there is very little difference between dual and single channel for socket A systems, something like 3-10% performance change.

 

[cyberjock]

Gravemind123 makes a good point. You are using DDR. It is a dying breed right now. If you plan to keep that machine for a while and play wow on it, I'd go single channel and put as much RAM in it as you can for a good price. You are basically spending money that will end up going down the drain because you won't be able to pull it out and use it in a new machine later. WOW really isn't as CPU intensive as it is RAM intensive.

I tried going to newegg.com and mushkin.com to see how much the price difference is between 1x2GB and 2x1GB, and I couldn't even find 2GB sticks of DDR-400. So that might make up your mind for you. I'd just get 2x1GB from newegg.com for less than $100 and stick that in.

 

[jt001]

Dual channel is basically useless on Socket A, just get another 1GB stick.

 

[gpippas]

jt001 Thats what I thought. Amd mobos didnt have dual channel until skt 939. That and increased HT speed were the whole point of 939.

 

[randomizer]

With only 3 slots, and older than socket 939, you aren't running dual channel at all. Therefore go buy more RAM till your hearts content