Dual channel RAM with 4 sticks

[warbean]

Hello,

For those of you who know about dual channel memory, I was wondering how it works for those with 4 sticks of RAm. Let's say I have 4x512 memory on an enabled chipset. I wouldnt have to worry about the colors and such because all sticks are equal and fill all 4 DIMMs on my mobo. Are these sticks then considered to be running in dual channel mode?

How would a 3stick configuration work?

Or...does dual channel only work with 2 sticks of memory?

Finally...are there any other settings I need to enable in BIOS or windows to enable the dual channel configuration? What sort of performance increase can I expect by doing this?

The research on the web doesnt have much info on DDR2 and these questions I have asked beyond the theoretical realm, I much appreciate any insight anyone else has to offer on this issue.

Thanks,
Warren

 

[Tsuwamono]

4 sticks work. i run 4 sticks of 512mb ram on my system right now in dual channel

 

[alimoalem]

you'll be in dual channel with 4 sticks but running at 2T (basically you lose ~3% performance compared to a rig with 2x1gb ram sticks). you don't need 2 sticks to run in dual channel, just a multiple of 2. in short, 3 sticks won't work (you'll be in single channel). this is true for ddr and ddr2...you don't only need to search for ddr2

 

[warbean]

Yes, I noticed that I am in fact running at 2T. (I was reading somewhere though, that the higher densities on 1GB sticks slow the speeds almost enough to equal the 1T boost, but that's a different story.)

Where can I go to verify that I am running properly in dual channel mode?

 

[pukemon]

Back in the days of the nForce2 Ultra and nForce2 400 Ultra, 3 stick dual channel configurations were common. Basically, one channel was used by one slot, and the second channel were used by the two other slots. They were usually color coded so you could tell which DIMM slots to use. So you could run dual channel with either two or three DIMMs.