Intel DX58SO mobo - memory slot question

[danjf]

I'm in the market for a new gaming rig (or will be come March) and just had a few general questions about motherboards and memory.

I'm speaking of the Intel i7 family:

Some retail gaming rig makers have 12GB DDR3 RAM (2 GB x 6) coming with a system. Now, typically, are all slots triple channel (six of them?), or are there any single channel slots?

One mobo I saw, the Intel DX58SO, had only 3 triple channels slots (and 1 single channel slot), whereas the ASUS (P6T family) had, I think, six. Any reason the DX58SO doesn't have six? Price? Design flaw? Older model?

The other question is why would they put a single channel slot and not just keep them all triple channel? I'm sure there's some technical reason behind that decision. But it eludes me

Thank for any advice on this subject!

--DaN--

 

[o1die]

Some say it's a bad design. This board will work with 3 or 4 sticks of ram; with 4 it's running in dual instead of tripple channel mode, but you won't notice the speed difference. I suggest you get an msi board with 6 ram slots; I've never had a memory issue with msi boards. Asus can be picky about memory.

 

[danjf]

I'm surprised that Asus is finicky with memory as I usually hear that Asus puts out a quality mobo.

 

[o1die]

I've seen more posts about asus boards and memory problems than any other brand. Asus makes good products, but choose your ram carefully.