Dual-channel memory on 875P worth upgrade ?

[ScottFern]

My rig is listed in my sig.

I was curious if I got another stick of 512MB PC3200 would I notice any performance gains out of it at all ? It says for the mobo features that it increases the bandwidth to 6.4GB/sec and gets rid of memory bottlenecks, or is it just advertising ?

opinions or comments.....

 

[Soulkeeper]

my system is similar to yours and i have 2x512mb in my system
i've found that increasing from 512 to 1024 in most cases will go unnoticed and is easily covered by dual channel performance or a few extra mhz

now if you have long uptimes or run programs that need the extra memory then the reverse applies


good luck

 

[Duvie]

Originally posted by: ScottFern
My rig is listed in my sig.

I was curious if I got another stick of 512MB PC3200 would I notice any performance gains out of it at all ? It says for the mobo features that it increases the bandwidth to 6.4GB/sec and gets rid of memory bottlenecks, or is it just advertising ?

opinions or comments.....

Most of it is marketing BS but I noticed a 5-10% gain when going from single to dual channel memory on a 533fsb chip...The 800fsb chip may be a few points higher....so noticebale yes but we are not talking double the performance like the theoretcial bandwidth doubled or the 40+ gain you will see in the crap synthetic scores of sandra....

I think most systems now 1gb is nice as it almost gaurantees their will be no pagefiling and that will help performance or perceived performance...

 

[Parabellum27]

5% to 10% is like gaining 150-300MHz out of a P4 3.0C. I think that i would worth the upgrade in my opinion.

Para

 

[DN]

It really depends if you use ram intensive programs or not and how much you auto-load.. If you notice a lot of HD access, chances are it'll help, but don't expect a major increase in performance.. I'm under the assumption you are running WinXP here.. BTW, try to get the exact same type of ram, same brand included..

 

[butch84]

i would prolly do it .... not so much for the dual channel memory tho. while dual channel ram would help overall performance, doubling your ram size can help quite a lot too, depending on what you are doing with your comp

 

[Thegonagle]

Yes, it's worth it, but the mem-modules must have the exact same configuration for each dual-channel pair. Read mechBgon's comments in this thread for more info.