The Benefits of Dual Channel DDR2 Over Single Channel

[raider37]

hey everyone, i'm an avid reader of Tomhardware and only just joined the forums. I wanted to ask u guys about the benefits of dual channel ram since i recently bought a system and i wanted to find out if i'd get significantly better performance if i switced to dual channel mode.

The Specs are

Intel Pentium Dual Core E2160 @2.4GHZ
Corsair XMS2 DDR2 PC-6400 2GB 1x2
Cooler Master Elite 330 Case
Cooler Master 500 Watts Extreme Power Supply
Cooler Master Hyper TX 2 CPU Cooler
XFX Geforce 9600GSO
XFX Nvidia 630i Board

I'm using this for some light gaming, and i know i could buy much better graphics cards, i'm plesantly delighted at the performance this system is giving me in all games.........except Crysis lol. Anyway i'd also would like u guys to tell me if this system is alright for a budget pc build. Thanks

 

[kad]

XFX Nvidia 630i Board
You were not ablle to pick a worse mobo ???
XFX Geforce 9600GSO and you are dreaming of Grysis???
Frankly your whole system is the Crysis itself
Don't bother about dual channel or sigle
It's hopeless
I Feel sorry for the 500$ you wasted

 

[raider37]

Woah! I live in Pakistan man, the options here are VERY limited, couldnt order from abroad since warranty would be an issue and crysis is running fine at 1024x768 with everything on high. Since i have a 17inch CRT, its perfect.

 

[sarwar_r87]

in that case u r fine with 9600gso......but i must say getting that nvidia 630i board was a mistake. i no warranty is a issue. i liv in bangladesh....i got ma processor and gfx from canada coz they wernt available here and plus they were cheaper there. warranty is not a problem with these to components as they are usually well build and as long as u dont OC them, they will be fine and will last for 2-3yrs before u have to update. i ma experience motherboards and HD are the stuff that u need warranty as a must

dual channel or single channel makes no noticeable change in performance

 

[Zorg]

Hey kad, lighten up a tad.

I do have concerns about your PSU though. Cooler Master isn't known for very good PSUs, keep an eye on it.

Dual channel is more hype than reality. If you have 2 sticks it makes no sense to not run it in dual channel.


Here's an article for you.

Parallel Processing, Part 2: RAM and HDD : Single Or Dual Channel RAM; Single, Dual And Quad Hard Drives

 

[raider37]

Hmm the power supply does tend to get warm under load, but since the other power supplies were more expensive i decided to go with this one. Lets just hope it doesnt burn any component out. If it does go, i'll buy a corsair tx550 watt power supply, i've noticed many people saying its good. The reason i cant run it in dual channel mode is because my board doesnt support dual channel ram mode. I was going to buy an Intel P45 motherboard but i wasnt too sure about the overclocking abilities on intel boards so i decided for this one instead. Overclocking as been very easy on this board and i was able to overclock my processor to 3.2 on air without increase the voltages to the chipset or processor. Although my chipset got quite warm. There arent any coolers for the chipset, available here. Could u please tell me why exactly this motherboard isnt good?

 

[Zorg]

It's just a low end mobo, which you knew going in, and the Nvidia chipsets have some stability problems. If it does what you want, and it's stable, then then no problem. Here is a review.

XFX nForce 630i GeForce 7150 Motherboard - HotHardware

 

[raider37]

Yeah i did, but its doing its job well and i've had no stability issues as well. Thanks for your help man.

 

[PsyKhiqZero]

I don't see why you wouldn't go dual channel as you have the hardware to do it. It may be a small performance gain but at least ti would be free.

 

[kad]

Sorry raider37-Zorg
I did mean to be rude
But with all reviews and problems and complains from nForce chipsets I wasn't able to swallow 630i
These sites ship worldwide and they are amazing
http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/
http://www.priceguidenetwork.com/
TRUE is the best HS with Scythe SFF21F 63 CFM S-FLEX 120mm Fan

 

[Zorg]

I don't see why you wouldn't go dual channel as you have the hardware to do it. It may be a small performance gain but at least ti would be free.

I guess you didn't see where raider37 said the mobo wouldn't do it. I know, odd these days. It's also spelled out in the review I linked. For a quick check go to the conclusions, it's one of the cons.

 

[raider37]

Its cool man, but seriously i havent had any problems soo far, besides the article zorg gave me on Dual channel Vs. Single Channel was very interesting. in most cases there was no performance difference between the two. Only in synthetic benchmarks where the memory bandwidth was being tested, we saw a performance increase and that was only by a few hundred points.

Anyhow i think i'll stay with this board for some time, and buy a new one later on, along with thr corsair power supply and a radeon 4850

 

[raider37]

@PsyKhiqZero my motherboard doesnt have a dual channel memory controller.