Single-channel LL vs. Dual-channel

[claisen]

So I'm building a computer for my brother, and I'm on a pretty strict budget. I'm going to go with a Athlon XP Barton 2600+ and some nForce2 mobo (haven't quite decided). My question is the following...

Would I be better off buying one stick of low-latency PC2700 ram (512mb) or a matched pair (256mb each) of PC2700 Kingston ValueRAM (or another equally "value-priced" brand)?

(Each option is roughly equivalent in price)

I've read somewhere that the lower-numbered Athlon XP processors will not take advantage of the dual-channel setup to its full extent, so I thought perhaps a single stick of CAS 2 would be a better buy. Let me know your thoughts.

 

[Crashman]

All XP's have a DDR bus. That means they have the same bandwith on the CPU bus as a single channel of DDR SDRAM of the same speed. Slower/faster doesn't matter, no XP can use the extra bandwidth dual channel provides. You DO get a bit of latency reduction on nForce2 boards, but you might as well get the lower latency RAM to begin with.

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