Dual chanel memory setup vs. using all 3 banks..

Erron

Junior Member
Feb 15, 2004
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Is there going to be a big performance hit when going from HyperX matched
dual sticks of 256 Mb 3200 memory vs. 3 sticks (256 mb in first bank, 512
in second bank and second matched 256 stick in 3rd bank). They are all
the same type of memory (HyperX), have the same Cas latency (2) and have the same specs except thone stick of the three is 512.

If everyone thinks it will take a hit at all I will just buy another 512
stick and keep using Dual Channel.

Any information would help. Thanks in advance.

Dual channel has to be ran in banks 1 and 3 right? The second slot can be used for whatever other type of memory.

My system is as listed below..
MSI K7N2 Delta-ILSR nForce2
AMD Athlon XP 3200+ 2.2GHz 400FSB (not overclocked)
Kingston HyperX KHX3200A/512 512MB DDR400 PC3200 Memory w/Heat Spreader (will be in bank 2)
Kingston HyperX KHX3200AK2/512 512MB Kit DDR400 PC3200 Memory w/Heat Spreader (in banks 1 and 3)
 

Sheriff

Golden Member
Mar 14, 2001
1,182
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No as DC takes the 1st 2 sticks and just adds additional. You may have to flip the sticks around but the end result will differ no more then 5% if any on a non graphics board
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
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Yeah, just apply the "more-memory-is-better" rule here. Welcome to the Forums, by the way :)
 

Erron

Junior Member
Feb 15, 2004
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Thanks for the information everyone. I appreciate the help.

And thank you. I have enjoyed reading these forums quite a bit. A lot of helpful people here.
 

joe2004

Senior member
Oct 14, 2003
385
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Page not equal bank, bank not equal stick, page not equal stick.
Number of pages is greater or equal to number of banks, number of banks is greater or equal to number of sticks, what you see is number of sticks.
Due to consistent AMD problem of handling memory (good old 760 chipstet was the best one here) you cannot run efficiently many banks on any AMD based motherboard, there is always some type of problem that slows memory down or creates instabilities or both. Dual channel won't run with three sticks.
 

DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member
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Aug 22, 2001
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Dual channel does work with 3 sticks Joe.
 

joe2004

Senior member
Oct 14, 2003
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Dual channel does work with 3 sticks Joe.
Alright, that is news to me. I actually tried some time ago and saw the hit with performance gone down. Perhaps that changed. Which chipsets that is?
 

DAPUNISHER

Super Moderator CPU Forum Mod and Elite Member
Super Moderator
Aug 22, 2001
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With most nF2 boards 2 sticks will be on 1 bank and the 3rd on the other. I've read that using 2x256mb in 1 bank and 1 512mb in the other is the best config, but honestly I never tried benching 3 sticks of same size and then different so I'll have to take the word of the people who did and posted that info. There are some boards, Gigabyte for instance, that have 4 memory slots, and others like my SFF Shuttle with only 2 slots, but most have 2 on 1 64bit bank and 1 on the other like his MSI does. Some boards claim 3 DIMMS in dual channel isn't supported@400DDR speeds but most will do it anyhow.
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
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pspada did some tests with two 256MB and one 512MB module in different arrangements on his nForce2 board, using UT2003 Demo as a fairly real-world test. The results were practically identical in the different arrangements, so I will stick with my suggestion that in this situation, more RAM is better.

Now if it were an Athlon 64, then having more than four banks of RAM is going to cause the memory controller to drop its speed to 100MHz / DDR200, which is Not Nice. There is a new CG stepping of A64 that is supposed to allow up to six banks at DDR400 speeds, but I don't know when it's gonna get here.
 

joe2004

Senior member
Oct 14, 2003
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There is a new CG stepping of A64 that is supposed to allow up to six banks at DDR400 speeds, but I don't know when it's gonna get here.
Newegg is the only one listing steppings, readable from the OEM "model" number. So far only C0. I am waiting for this CG stepping badly.
 

pspada

Platinum Member
Dec 23, 2002
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Mechbgon is correct, I ran several different tests using one 512Mb stick and two 256Mb chips on a Epox 8RDA+ mobo. All results, with the two 256 "balanced" with the 512, as well as not "balanced" were within an expected ~5% margin of variance, no matter how the ram was installed.

I'm still running with three 512Mb sticks, that's for sure.