2 x 256 or 1x 512
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That would depend on what kind of future upgradability you'd like and how many slots there are available. You most likely have 3 slots for memory. If you go with the two 256MB modules, you will only have one free slot for expansion. If it were me, I'd go with the 512MB module. (Actually if it were me, I'd max out the memory on the motherboard immediately. 
-Raystonn
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
-Raystonn
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
True, but if you get two sticks and then get the nForce, you can take advantage of the Dual-channel RAM.
But since RAM is so cheap now, I'd say go for one 512 (even though it's more expensive than two 256s)
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But since RAM is so cheap now, I'd say go for one 512 (even though it's more expensive than two 256s)
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Whoever thinks up a good sig for me gets a prize
If you only have one PC and you life depends on it, get 2 sticks of 256. This way if one of the sticks die on you, you can still limp on with the other stick of 256. If you doubt this, ask me. Damn that Murphy's Law.
It don't come easy.......not always.
It don't come easy.......not always.
The nForce chipset is only dual-channel in that one channel (and hence one memory slot) is dedicated to the integrated graphics chipset while the rest is dedicated to the CPU and the rest of the system. The memory you place in the slot that's dedicated to the graphics chipset will be unusable as standard system memory by the CPU. In essence, they removed all memory from the integrated graphics chipset and instead allow you to determine how much onboard video memory you'd like yourself, which you can plug into the graphics memory slot. The actual memory usable by the real CPU is still using a single channel. You will in fact see absolutely no benefit with this extra graphics memory channel if you choose to install an add-on video card, as most performance-minded people do. It will sit there being entirely unused.
-Raystonn
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
-Raystonn
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
camieabz
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- Jan 29, 2001
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True, but I'm a bit worried about any system which <i>limps</i> with 256MB of RAM. Very high end systems accepted, this amount of RAM is still going to handle things nicely.
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flamethrower205
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- Jun 26, 2001
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My mobo has 1.5 GB RAM Max (FIC AD11). Is there any way to increase this?
When I rule the world, Apple will only mean the fruit.
When I rule the world, Apple will only mean the fruit.
I'm afraid your information is inacurate. nForce 128 is a dual channel chipset, and the memory bandwith is shared between the system and the graphic subsystem without access lock-out, through a cross controller. As I perceive it, it has some similarities with SGI systems in that aspect.
If you information was correct then the 64 bit version of the chipset would have no memory bandwith either to the GPU or the rest of the system (or else it would use an "exquisite" 32 bit bus to both)
But you still can't buy nForce based mobos... yet.
How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise
If you information was correct then the 64 bit version of the chipset would have no memory bandwith either to the GPU or the rest of the system (or else it would use an "exquisite" 32 bit bus to both
)But you still can't buy nForce based mobos... yet.
How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise
Sorry, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's simply not the case. The dual memory channels are split between the integrated graphics chipset and the rest of the system. When you use an add-on graphics board, you do not need to put any memory into the graphics memory slot. (It would not be used.) Take a look at the nForce architecture diagram. You will see the memory split into two different locations. (One dedicated to the graphics chipset.)
-Raystonn
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
-Raystonn
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
Don't worry, we are not in ancient egypt .
But AFAIK, there is no such thing as a graphic memory slot and there is no splitagge between the channels - they are each connected to an independent memory controler, as can be seen in these diagrams http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q2/0106041/nforce-09.html
http://www.anandtech.com/chipsets/showdoc.html?i=1484&p=4
(this one is explicit regarding this).
Or, as Nvidia puts it (in the middle of all that marketing crap), "TwinBank's dual-independent, cross-bar memory controller allows the CPU, GPU, and APU simultaneous access to the system's 4.2GB/sec. of memory bandwidth, guaranteeing continuous access for all applications, all the time. (http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=twinbank)"
This means that the dual channel version (nForce 440?), when paired with an add-on graphics board will have 128 bit DDR access - 4.2GB/s of bandwith. When using the internal GPU, you still have the 4.2GB/s of memory bandwith, but the graphic susbsytem will consume a much larger part of it, since in this case it doesn't have its own memory bank.
Where did you get any info regarding a graphics memory slot?
How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise
.But AFAIK, there is no such thing as a graphic memory slot and there is no splitagge between the channels - they are each connected to an independent memory controler, as can be seen in these diagrams http://www6.tomshardware.com/mainboard/01q2/0106041/nforce-09.html
http://www.anandtech.com/chipsets/showdoc.html?i=1484&p=4
(this one is explicit regarding this).
Or, as Nvidia puts it (in the middle of all that marketing crap), "TwinBank's dual-independent, cross-bar memory controller allows the CPU, GPU, and APU simultaneous access to the system's 4.2GB/sec. of memory bandwidth, guaranteeing continuous access for all applications, all the time. (http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?IO=twinbank)"
This means that the dual channel version (nForce 440?), when paired with an add-on graphics board will have 128 bit DDR access - 4.2GB/s of bandwith. When using the internal GPU, you still have the 4.2GB/s of memory bandwith, but the graphic susbsytem will consume a much larger part of it, since in this case it doesn't have its own memory bank.
Where did you get any info regarding a graphics memory slot?
How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise
Raystonn said:
2) - taking 1) into account it is quite obvious that that there is no "graphics memory slot"
My interpretation - and it can obviously be wrong, is that Raystonn was saying that one of the nForce memory channels was reserved to the graphic core, and if one used an add-on adapter, that channel would go unused.
The issue is that none of the nForce channels is reserved to the on-chipset GPU - there is 4.2 GB/s of memory bandwith available for the entire system - including CPU, southbridge...
Or, in other words, in nForce there is no such thing as a free lunch,... I mean a graphic memory slot.
How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise
1) - there is no dedicated memory location to the graphics chipset.
2) - taking 1) into account it is quite obvious that that there is no "graphics memory slot"
My interpretation - and it can obviously be wrong, is that Raystonn was saying that one of the nForce memory channels was reserved to the graphic core, and if one used an add-on adapter, that channel would go unused.
The issue is that none of the nForce channels is reserved to the on-chipset GPU - there is 4.2 GB/s of memory bandwith available for the entire system - including CPU, southbridge...
Or, in other words, in nForce there is no such thing as a free lunch,...
I mean a graphic memory slot.How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise
I don't think I'm being very clear so I'll take another approach. What I'm attempting to point out is that the CPU does not have access to all of this bandwidth. Half of the bandwidth (in essence, a full channel's worth of bandwidth) is indeed meant for the graphics chipset. Looking past nVidia's marketing for a moment we can clearly see this in their technical brief. Anandtech's picture of the layout (from your Anandtech url) was ripped (without credits I might add) from nVidia's technical brief pdf file, which can be found <A HREF="http://www.nvidia.com/docs/lo/49/SUPP/nForce_TwinBank_Memory_Architecture_Tech_Brief.pdf" target="_new">here</A>.
If you'll take a magnifying glass to the one on Anandtech's site (or look at the PDF on page 5 of 10) you'll notice they give maximum bandwidth figures between the various components. Take a look at the figure for the bus that connects the CPU and the memory system. It offers a "whopping" 2.128GB/sec of memory bandwidth for your CPU. That figure happens to match the bandwidth of a single memory channel exactly. What's important here is the amount of memory bandwidth offered to your CPU. We can clearly see from the same picture that an AGP video card will only consume 1.064GB/sec of memory bandwidth at most. This is pretty much the same for all systems currently in existence with a 4x AGP slot. You now have another 1.064GB/sec of memory bandwidth left over that cannot be utilized by the CPU. This is wasted memory bandwidth. Your CPU will still get only 2.1GB/sec, the same as currently offered by any other PC2100 DDR motherboard. Is this what their promotional material says? It doesn't look that way to me. Does it provide more bandwidth to the CPU than the current dual channel RDRAM designs (3.2GB/sec)? No.
-Raystonn
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
If you'll take a magnifying glass to the one on Anandtech's site (or look at the PDF on page 5 of 10) you'll notice they give maximum bandwidth figures between the various components. Take a look at the figure for the bus that connects the CPU and the memory system. It offers a "whopping" 2.128GB/sec of memory bandwidth for your CPU. That figure happens to match the bandwidth of a single memory channel exactly. What's important here is the amount of memory bandwidth offered to your CPU. We can clearly see from the same picture that an AGP video card will only consume 1.064GB/sec of memory bandwidth at most. This is pretty much the same for all systems currently in existence with a 4x AGP slot. You now have another 1.064GB/sec of memory bandwidth left over that cannot be utilized by the CPU. This is wasted memory bandwidth. Your CPU will still get only 2.1GB/sec, the same as currently offered by any other PC2100 DDR motherboard. Is this what their promotional material says? It doesn't look that way to me. Does it provide more bandwidth to the CPU than the current dual channel RDRAM designs (3.2GB/sec)? No.
-Raystonn
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
This from the <A HREF="http://www.amd.com/products/cpg/athlon/keyfeatures.html" target="_new">AMD Web Site:</A>
"... 266MHz or 200MHz AMD Athlon™ processor system bus enables leading-edge system bandwidth for data movement-intensive applications ... Peak data rate of 1.6 to 2.1GB/s (depending on processor bus speed)..."
It appears that the Athlons have a theoretical max bandwidth of 2.1GB/s.
This from the <A HREF="http://developer.intel.com/design/Pentium4/prodbref/#bus" target="_new">Intel Web Site:</A>
"...
400 MHz System Bus
The Pentium® 4 processor supports Intel's highest performance desktop system bus by delivering 3.2 GB of data per second into and out of the processor. This is accomplished through a physical signaling scheme of quad pumping the data transfers over a 100-MHz clocked system bus and a buffering scheme allowing for sustained 400-MHz data transfers. This compares to 1.06 GB/s delivered on the Pentium® III processor's 133-MHz system bus.
..."
It appears that the P4s have a theoretical max bandwidth of 3.2GB/s.
I still think dual DDR banks would be nice. So the nForce board still represent an attractive option for me, performance wise. My assumption is that there will be no CPU memory access slowdowns when the graphic card is accessing memory.
Thanks for shedding light on the subject.
"... 266MHz or 200MHz AMD Athlon™ processor system bus enables leading-edge system bandwidth for data movement-intensive applications ... Peak data rate of 1.6 to 2.1GB/s (depending on processor bus speed)..."
It appears that the Athlons have a theoretical max bandwidth of 2.1GB/s.
This from the <A HREF="http://developer.intel.com/design/Pentium4/prodbref/#bus" target="_new">Intel Web Site:</A>
"...
400 MHz System Bus
The Pentium® 4 processor supports Intel's highest performance desktop system bus by delivering 3.2 GB of data per second into and out of the processor. This is accomplished through a physical signaling scheme of quad pumping the data transfers over a 100-MHz clocked system bus and a buffering scheme allowing for sustained 400-MHz data transfers. This compares to 1.06 GB/s delivered on the Pentium® III processor's 133-MHz system bus.
..."
It appears that the P4s have a theoretical max bandwidth of 3.2GB/s.
I still think dual DDR banks would be nice. So the nForce board still represent an attractive option for me, performance wise. My assumption is that there will be no CPU memory access slowdowns when the graphic card is accessing memory.
Thanks for shedding light on the subject.
"It appears that the Athlons have a theoretical max bandwidth of 2.1GB/s"
The CPUs do not have a maximum bandwidth. Buses do. Current memory architectures offer 2.1GB/s for PC2100 DDR.
"My assumption is that there will be no CPU memory access slowdowns when the graphic card is accessing memory."
Yes. This will be a first for an integrated graphics chipset. However, all add-on cards have their own memory and have never incurred penalties when accessing their memory. Thus, you gain nothing when using an add-on video card. It's the same as all the rest of the chipsets/motherboards; just another 2.1GB/s PC2100 DDR motherboard.
-Raystonn
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
The CPUs do not have a maximum bandwidth. Buses do. Current memory architectures offer 2.1GB/s for PC2100 DDR.
"My assumption is that there will be no CPU memory access slowdowns when the graphic card is accessing memory."
Yes. This will be a first for an integrated graphics chipset. However, all add-on cards have their own memory and have never incurred penalties when accessing their memory. Thus, you gain nothing when using an add-on video card. It's the same as all the rest of the chipsets/motherboards; just another 2.1GB/s PC2100 DDR motherboard.
-Raystonn
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
I mean the bus that the processor uses is limiting the bandwidth that it can utilize. Giving the system more total bandwidth won't enable the processor to use it, hence the 2.1GB/s CPU bandwidth limitation from/to the CPU in Figure 3 of the "nForce TwinBank Memory Architecture Tech Brief" document that you referred us to.
There are specified limits to how fast data can flow in or out of the Athlon processor. According to AMD documentation, that specified limit is 2.1GB/s (for 266FSB). According to AMD, the Athlon should only interface with a 2.1GB/s max bus. Total memory bandwidth for the system is still 4.2GB/s, only 2.1GB/s is visible to the CPU. The fact that the CPU only sees a 2.1GB/s bus does not imply that only one bank is dedicated to the CPU which you seem to suggests:
"...The nForce chipset is only dual-channel in that one channel (and hence one memory slot) is dedicated to the integrated graphics chipset while the rest is dedicated to the CPU and the rest of the system. The memory you place in the slot that's dedicated to the graphics chipset will be unusable as standard system memory by the CPU..."
and
"...Take a look at the figure for the bus that connects the CPU and the memory system. It offers a "whopping" 2.128GB/sec of memory bandwidth for your CPU. That figure happens to match the bandwidth of a single memory channel exactly. What's important here is the amount of memory bandwidth offered to your CPU. ..."
and
"...Take a look at the nForce architecture diagram. You will see the memory split into two different locations. (One dedicated to the graphics chipset.)..."
"...The nForce chipset is only dual-channel in that one channel (and hence one memory slot) is dedicated to the integrated graphics chipset while the rest is dedicated to the CPU and the rest of the system. The memory you place in the slot that's dedicated to the graphics chipset will be unusable as standard system memory by the CPU..."
and
"...Take a look at the figure for the bus that connects the CPU and the memory system. It offers a "whopping" 2.128GB/sec of memory bandwidth for your CPU. That figure happens to match the bandwidth of a single memory channel exactly. What's important here is the amount of memory bandwidth offered to your CPU. ..."
and
"...Take a look at the nForce architecture diagram. You will see the memory split into two different locations. (One dedicated to the graphics chipset.)..."
"There are specified limits to how fast data can flow in or out of the Athlon processor"
Actually, there aren't. It all depends on the speed of the bus to the CPU. Obviously a CPU is limited by the clockspeed at which it is rated. The clockspeed is determined by the bus frequency multiplied by the CPU's "multiplier". If you decrease the CPU multiplier and increase the bus speed a proportional amount, you have just increased the amount of data that can be sent to the CPU without affecting the actual speed of the CPU itself (its clockspeed.)
"The fact that the CPU only sees a 2.1GB/s bus does not imply that only one bank is dedicated to the CPU which you seem to suggests"
Both memory channels are in fact available all components, including the CPU. I apologize for stating otherwise. I had seen another diagram a few months ago that had led me to this conclusion. However, that doesn't change the fact that you have the bandwidth equivolent of only a single channel available to the CPU. That is 0 progress in terms of memory bandwidth.
-Raystonn
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
Actually, there aren't. It all depends on the speed of the bus to the CPU. Obviously a CPU is limited by the clockspeed at which it is rated. The clockspeed is determined by the bus frequency multiplied by the CPU's "multiplier". If you decrease the CPU multiplier and increase the bus speed a proportional amount, you have just increased the amount of data that can be sent to the CPU without affecting the actual speed of the CPU itself (its clockspeed.)
"The fact that the CPU only sees a 2.1GB/s bus does not imply that only one bank is dedicated to the CPU which you seem to suggests"
Both memory channels are in fact available all components, including the CPU. I apologize for stating otherwise. I had seen another diagram a few months ago that had led me to this conclusion. However, that doesn't change the fact that you have the bandwidth equivolent of only a single channel available to the CPU. That is 0 progress in terms of memory bandwidth.
-Raystonn
= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =
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