Adding 512 Megs to my 1 G Dual channel setup

[tornadog]

I have a 1 G dual channel DDR hyperx kit running at 1T. If I add another 512 megs, will I see any performance increase. I am trying to prepare my rig for Vista and so far Ram seems to be my bottleneck because lot of it gets used by Vista to render all those desktop effects, I get very little left for my games. I dont want to give up my 1 G because of the obscene prices right now on ddr RAM.

 

[Raider1284]

You could defineately add the 512, and you will notice it if you need the additionaly ram, but you will most likely lose dual channel. For dual channel to work either the sticks have to be the same size or in the case of 3 sticks of ram, 2 of the sticks have to equal the size of the 3rd stick. So 2 512 sticks w/ a 1gig stick would work; but 2 512 sticks w/ another 512 stick will not be able to run in dual channel mode.

Someone correct me if im wrong

 

[alex123]

I think tornadog meant he would be adding 2 x 256 sticks in order to keep dual channel.

However because of 4 sticks, and depending on the mobo, be ready to lose:

A) most likely you will lose 1T timing and will have to run with 2T timings. It is not often when 4 sticks are running at 1T. Most of the time 4 sticks means 2T

B) very possible you may be forced to run at DDR333 divider rather than DDR400 divider. Again, this depends on the mobo AND sticks. Like my MSI Geforce 6150 mobo is willing to run DDR400 with 4 sticks when sticks are single-sided, and it wants DDR333 for 4 double-sided sticks.

B) is not really a problem because I overclock and run memory at DDR333 divider, so the actual speed is DDR333 * 25% overclock is about 408 MHz is still a bit faster than DDR400 400 MHz speed


Bottom line is if your software needs more memory (e.g. you see extensive disk swapping activity), then increase your memory and do not warry about 1T vs 2T etc

 

[tornadog]

thanks for the info. Any difference if I add a single stick of 512 vs 2 sticks of 256 so I can get another 512 in future?

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: tornadog
Any difference if I add a single stick of 512 vs 2 sticks of 256 so I can get another 512 in future?

At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious: adding 2x256MB = dual channel, whereas adding 1x512MB = single channel only.