Any performance loss by using 4 sticks of memory in dual channel?

[BD2003]

I remember back when the first dual channel nforce boards came out...a lot of times putting a third dimm in would force the whole system to slow down in order to accomodate it.

I just picked up a dell at a rock bottom price, and it comes stock with 2x256mb ddr2, with two free slots. I'd much rather buy another 2x256 than dump them and buy 2x512.

Is there any loss of performance by using 4 sticks rather than 2? How should they be configured. Should both sticks in the same channel be identical, or should I "even it out" and use one of each in each channel, since obviously the memory I pick up wont be the same that dell provides.

 

[Megatomic]

Well, since all the sticks are going to be nearly identical I'd say just put the new ones in the empty RAM slots. The mobo chipset should take care of the rest for you. If you notice some instability (you could run Memtest86 prior to booting into windows) you could then go into the BIOS and up Vdimm and change timings (if those options are available to you).

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Megatomic
Well, since all the sticks are going to be nearly identical I'd say just put the new ones in the empty RAM slots. The mobo chipset should take care of the rest for you. If you notice some instability (you could run Memtest86 prior to booting into windows) you could then go into the BIOS and up Vdimm and change timings (if those options are available to you).

They most definitely wont be available to me. But are there any reported problems with using 4 sticks?

 

[Golgatha]

Actually the 925X has the option for dual channel using your 2x256MB + 1x512MB if the 256MB sticks you have are single sided. Just make sure the 512MB you get has two banks (chips on both sides).

Check out page 22 for dual channel with 3 DIMMS.