Any tangible advantage to Dual-Channel DDR2?

[Solema]

Hi All,
I am building a couple PC's on the cheap for a client of mine, and I am torn between getting 2x512MB DDR2 sticks in dual-channel or one 1GB stick in single channel. The board has two DDR2 slots, so if I go the 2x512MB route, I will have to chuck the sticks later if I want to upgrade the PC's to 2GB. But is there any performance increase that makes dual-channel worthwhile enough for me to worry about RAM upgrades later?

 

[13Gigatons]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/core2duo-memory-guide_4.html

 

[Solema]

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I am building two Socket AM2 X2's, not Core2Duo's. Can anyone shed light on this?

 

[13Gigatons]

Originally posted by: Solema
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I am building two Socket AM2 X2's, not Core2Duo's. Can anyone shed light on this?

The x2 is not bottlenecked like the Core 2 Duo so it will have more memory bandwidth but it only matters for software that will be using memory bandwidth.

I would start with 1 Gig sticks and then add another later on, your clients will probably feel a bigger performance increase going from 1 to 2 gigs then from single channel to dual channel.



What cpu model and what mobo is it ?

 

[Solema]

Correct, no overclocking. The motherboard is a cheap ECS GeForce6100 board and the CPU is an AMD X2 3600+.

All that will be done on these machines is general office work with multitasking.

 

[13Gigatons]

Originally posted by: Solema
Correct, no overclocking. The motherboard is a cheap ECS GeForce6100 board and the CPU is an AMD X2 3600+.

All that will be done on these machines is general office work with multitasking.

Definitely get the 1 gig sticks then add another later on.

 

[Solema]

Thanks man!