Single DDR2 vs Dual

[tmbiv1956]

My PC has the following configuration.

motherboard ASUS P5K-E (wifi/AP)
CPU INTEL E7500
RAM SINGLE PNY DDR2 6400 (800mhz) 2gb


I just replaced the two Corsair 1gb RAM chips because one of them was bad. (I don't know which)

The system seems very slow.

How much improvement could I expect if I added a second 2gb PNY RAM chip?

Thanks.
Tom

 

[megamanx00]

Just depends on what you're doing. You would benefit from having more memory period, but the benefit from dual channel vs single channel isn't too big for standard desktop apps. It's a different story with things like games or media editing apps though.

 

[505090]

as mega said depends on what you do, for how much difference you see but there will be an improvement

 

[tmbiv1956]

Thanks a lot for the response. I don't do a lot of media work and the only game I play would be solitaire.

I was wondering though if anyone could recommend a benchmarking tool to help me determine how well my system is working together?

I have used FreshDevices, but the comparison systems are several years old and are not really a good comparison to mine.

Anyway, I really appreciate your time in reading this.

Thanks.

 

[505090]

if media work means editing video or sound then yes get another stick

 

[Clones123]

I was wondering though if anyone could recommend a benchmarking tool...

I use Everest Ultimate from Lavalys. Normally it's $40 but you can get it for free by using trialpay on the Lavalys site to sign up for a free week of MP3 downloads (up to 25 tracks) from eMusic.com. As soon as you sign up at eMusic via the Trialpay link, you'll get an e-mail with a download link and activation code for Everest Ultimate. Then cancel the 7-day free trial because it's NOT likely that you'll find any music worth downloading even for free at eMusic.com.

(If you just don't want to waste it, I can recommend some of Lewis Black's stand-up comedy monologues in MP3. That's all I could find of even remote interest but it got me Everest Ultimate for free so what the heck.)

You can also download the free versions of any of Futuremark.com's industry-standard benchmarking tools (HUGE downloads) or they've also got an on-line VirtualMark you can run.

Cheers.

 

[tmbiv1956]

Hey thanks a lot for the tip! I'll check it out.

My system just seems very sluggish. The only difference in the system is that I am using SATA as IDE and not RAID, and I have 1 2gb chip instead of 2 x 1gb chips for RAM, and I have an E7500 cpu instead of an E6550.

Bootup to the Users screen (Windows XP) takes probably 1 to 2 minutes longer, and logging on takes longer too. I haven't even restored SQL Server yet.

I need to find out what is causing the sluggishness.

Thanks again.

Tom

 

[mewtwo064]

I dunno if you're still having trouble with this, seeing as this post is a few months old but I figured I'd put in my two cents. I used to have the same problem with my computer, using my SATA harddrives in IDE mode with mixed sized ram (1x1 GB, and 1x2 GB) and it would take my computer a significantly long time to boot to the login screen, and a long time to log in thereafter. The problem was because I was using the harddrives in IDE mode. After much hair pulling, someone suggested to me that I turn on AHCI in my BIOS, and use my harddrives in RAID mode. After I did that every thing started working fine again. You do need the AHCI drivers though for your motherboard most likely if you try this

 

[tmbiv1956]

Thank you for the response.
Yes, I have been living with the issue.

I have those drivers. I will give this a shot before I go buy some RAM.

THanks again.

 

[mewtwo064]

No problem at all, hope it helps =D