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What to do: 3GB of Single Channel vs. 2GB of Dual Channel?

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Well, I've purchased 2 1GB sticks of DDR2 667 RAM. My computer has 4 RAM slots. Currently, I have 2GB of 533 MHz ram in them(2 x 512mb 533 MHz, and 2 x 667mhz sticks). I originally purchased the 2 x 1gb sticks to replace my two 533MHz sticks, so all of my RAM would run at 667(The highest my computer can use).

So, right now I wondering if I should just put the 2x1gb sticks, and run in dual channel, or should I put in the 2 1GB sticks, and the 2 512 mb sticks(all would be running 667)? I've looked around and right now I'm leaning to 3GB, because most of the topics I've seen on it say that it will only boost performance by 5% if in dual channel, and it would be better to do the 3GB. I'll be running XP SP3. I am going to be playing games like crysis, bioshock, CoD 4, Red Alert 3, and FEAR 2. But I'm really wondering about crysis.

What do you guys think? 3GB of single channel, or 2gb of dual channel?

System specs:
2GHz AMD Athlon 64 x2 3800
HP ATI Radeon 512MB DDR2 graphics card

More about : 3gb single channel 2gb dual channel

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Anonymous
Memory Expert

Not sure about Crysis and Bioshock but whatever... :) 
Dual chanel sticks (2x1gb) is just like running 2 videocards in crossfire or sli they will work as 1x2gb stick, so i recomend using 3 gigabytes of ram
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Depends on the board. MSI does it weird, other boards do it right. (each color is a channel.) Read the manual or try it both ways. CPUz should be able to tell you if your in dual channel or not.

xaira said:
put 1 512 stick and 1 1gb stick in each channel, then ull be running dual channel anyway


I'm running XP Pro, my understanding is that it won't recognize more than 3GB's right?

So if I wanted to run 3GB's in dual-channel, I'd buy a matched set of two 1GB sticks, and a matched set of 2 512k sticks?

hockster said:
I'm running XP Pro, my understanding is that it won't recognize more than 3GB's right?

So if I wanted to run 3GB's in dual-channel, I'd buy a matched set of two 1GB sticks, and a matched set of 2 512k sticks?

XP Won't recognize over 3.25 or 3.5. I know it's one of two.

And yes, two 1GB sticks, and two 512MB.

I'm going to be running an i7 920 and ASUS P6T board. I'm trying to figure out the best Corsair memory for this setup. There seems to be a big price gap between the choices. Either you're in the $200+ range, or you're in the $50-$100 range. Unfortunately I don't know enough about memory to make the right choice. Is the Corsair TWIN3X2048-1600C7DHXIN G TWINX Dominator Dual Channel 2048MB PC12800 DDR3 1600MHz so much better than say the Corsair TW3X2G1600C9DHX G Dual Channel 2048MB PC12800 DDR3 1600MHz that costs nearly $200 less for the set? I don't mind spending $250 on some RAM if its going to make a fairly significant difference.

hockster said:
I'm going to be running an i7 920 and ASUS P6T board. I'm trying to figure out the best Corsair memory for this setup. There seems to be a big price gap between the choices. Either you're in the $200+ range, or you're in the $50-$100 range. Unfortunately I don't know enough about memory to make the right choice. Is the Corsair TWIN3X2048-1600C7DHXIN G TWINX Dominator Dual Channel 2048MB PC12800 DDR3 1600MHz so much better than say the Corsair TW3X2G1600C9DHX G Dual Channel 2048MB PC12800 DDR3 1600MHz that costs nearly $200 less for the set? I don't mind spending $250 on some RAM if its going to make a fairly significant difference.

To me they look exactly to same. They are both DDR3, 2048mb, PC12800, and 1600mhz. Unless there is something i'm missing they are the same. But the model number might make a difference somehow.

corsair has the record for the highest clocked stable ddr3 ram 2533mhz
so they use that to justify paying ungodly prices for their ddr3 kits, u wont see but a 2% performance increase between ddr3 800 and ddr3 2000, but its nice to e able to tell people that the memory in ur pc is running at 2.0GHZ, thats all, if ur bent on corsair,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
there are cheaper 1333 kits, but i just dont like numbers that arent perfectly divisible by 8

Being that I'm still running XP Pro, I can't run more than 3GBs that will make a difference.

Would it be better to run triple channel with 3 1GB sticks? Or dual-channel with two 1GB sticks and 2 512k sticks?

Could you see a justification for paying $50 extra for the DDR3 1866 (PC3 15000) Triple Channel Kit, Cas Latency: 9, Timing: 9-9-9-24, compared to the DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel, Cas Latency: 8 Timing: 8-8-8-24?? Isn't the lower latency/faster timing better?

Thanks for the information!

@ hockster
tripple channel with 3x1gb 4 sure, yes lower latencies are always better in synthetic benches, but in real world performance, the extra investment wont pay for itself in a million years, by which time im sure weel be argueing about the worlds first 1thz cpu runnin too hot, or that intels cpu does something in 1 second and amd makes a cpu that does the same thing in 1.2 seconds, so they just cant keep up, y r u sticking with 32 bit windows, for an i7, it seems like a waste. go x64, there going to phase out 32bit windows evenyually, im surprised there even releasing windows 7 32 bit

Regthmare said:
To me they look exactly to same. They are both DDR3, 2048mb, PC12800, and 1600mhz. Unless there is something i'm missing they are the same. But the model number might make a difference somehow.


The only difference I saw was in the timing, with the less expensive being at, 9-9-9-24, and the more expensive at, 7-7-7-20. Is that a big enough difference to justify $200 more?

xaira said:
@ hockster
tripple channel with 3x1gb 4 sure, yes lower latencies are always better in synthetic benches, but in real world performance, the extra investment wont pay for itself in a million years, by which time im sure weel be argueing about the worlds first 1thz cpu runnin too hot, or that intels cpu does something in 1 second and amd makes a cpu that does the same thing in 1.2 seconds, so they just cant keep up, y r u sticking with 32 bit windows, for an i7, it seems like a waste. go x64, there going to phase out 32bit windows evenyually, im surprised there even releasing windows 7 32 bit


It seems like a lot of people I know have had problems with Vista, let alone there aren't much in the way of applications, in particular games which is why I'm building this rig, that take advantage of 64 bit architecture. On top of that, is there really a reason to run 6, 8, 12 GB's of memory? I know that Vista requires 4 GB. But how much more do you really need?

I'm totally open for debate on moving to Vista if I could be presented with a convincing case on why I should. What would really be the benefits?

hockster said:
The only difference I saw was in the timing, with the less expensive being at, 9-9-9-24, and the more expensive at, 7-7-7-20. Is that a big enough difference to justify $200 more?



cant u read, the only difference is in synthetics, the only reason people pay those prices are for "BRAGGING RITES", there is "LITTLE OR NO REAL WORLD PERFORMANCE INCREASE"

IS IT EASIER FOR YOU TO READ IN ALL CAPS?

if ur happy with xp, then stay with xp, just since its an i7, get xp x64, its an i7, havent u ever gotten bored with a game, didnt want to wait for it to load again so u thaught, i could minimise this game and start another game, and what if tyhat game got booring and so on and so on, i remember once i had fear minimised, halo minimised, and i was playing nfs most wanted, that was on xpx64with 4gb, and i dont no if ur a true tekkie, but most trues run virtual machines, and running 3 instances of vista simultaneously gets tiresome on low memory

xaira said:
if ur happy with xp, then stay with xp, just since its an i7, get xp x64, its an i7, havent u ever gotten bored with a game, didnt want to wait for it to load again so u thaught, i could minimise this game and start another game, and what if tyhat game got booring and so on and so on, i remember once i had fear minimised, halo minimised, and i was playing nfs most wanted, that was on xpx64with 4gb, and i dont no if ur a true tekkie, but most trues run virtual machines, and running 3 instances of vista simultaneously gets tiresome on low memory

The problem with XP x64 is that some games require SP3, and they didn't release SP3 for x64 of XP.

xaira said:
i didnt no that, thats so retarded, they must have done that to tell gamers that either they use vista or nothing, other than that it makes utterly no sense

Yea, that and they only release DirectX 10 for Vista..... I wonder why....
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