2x Dual Channel?

smonkyness

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Jun 14, 2009
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I have some 2x 1gb mushkin ddr pc4000 dual channel (very very nice stuff)
My motherboard handles dual channel ddr chandles, and supposedly handles 4 x 1gb sticks.

Is it possible to stick another 2 pieces of 1gb ddr in again running in a dual channel mode?

I am looking to add a bit more ram, I have an opteron 170 and im overclocking it. im a little confused.

Though i know its pretty damn hard nowadays to get hold of ddr1 ram, I am interested.
Perhaps i could find just 1gb of ram, and add that. so I would have 2gb in dual channel and 1gb.

Are these good ideas?
 

Rain1406

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Mar 3, 2009
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yeah, ram in 1+3 and 2+4 both run in dual channel, you should be able to run in 1+3 and 2+4 at the sme time. We'd need to know more about your motherboard to be certain

Bare in mind Vista 32 or XP 32bit edition can only read 3.2 gb of ram.
 

MushkinSean

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Jul 17, 2009
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Hi,

You can run four sticks, you will likely have to give up some memory speed, 2T CMD rate for sure.
Depends on how cranky your Opty gets.
Biggest problem is going to be finding DDR ram like you said.
Hit me up on the Mushkin forum, I'll check to see if we can match you up with anything

http://forums.mushkin.com/phpbb2/index.php
 

Paperdoc

Polypheme
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I've looked around on eBay for used DDR PC3200 RAM, and there seems to be lots available. So I pretty much ignored the unknowns and looked only at well-reputed names, especially ones just like the pair I have. As a reference point, I also checked out Newegg and like firms to see what's the price of brand new module pairs.

Two points to make:
1. If you go with your current pair in Dual Channel mode and add only one 1GB module in a third slot, I am not sure whether that will force all of your RAM into Single-Channel mode or not. Check whether your mobo manual addresses that question. For this reason you might be better putting in two 1GB modules, even though you will not be able to use more than about 3.2 to 3.5 GB total. Don't forget that, if your OS overhead is about 0.6 GB, you can only use 1.4 GB of what you have, and going to four 1 GB modules would raise you to 3.4, a very large increase.

2. On my mobo - an ASUS Socket 939 one with an Athlon 64 x2 4400+ CPU - the manual specifically reminds you that, if you populate all four RAM slots with double-sided SDRAM, it will slow the RAM bus from 400 MHz down to 333 MHz. This has to do with the ability of the RAM controller built into the Athlon 64 x2 chip to drive all those signal lines. I have no idea whether your Opteron chip has a similar limitation, but check to be sure.