dual channel vs more ram

[OS]

I have two sticks of 256 and unreal 2 still skips. Should I stick with dual channel or go ahead and drop in another 256 stick, which I have sitting around?

 

[ethebubbeth]

if you have the ram sitting around you might as well try it. if performance decreases at all, just remove the stick and go back to dual channel operation (although i find it highly unlikely that will happen). also, do you have a p4 or an athlon system? dual channel makes much more of a difference for intel systems than amd. however dual channel only makes a HUGE difference if you're using integrated graphics. in any case, good luck getting unreal II running smoothly.

 

[OS]

Thanks, I have a standalone vid card and an nforce 2 mobo

 

[bigpow]

Dual-Channel is faster like what 20%?
IMO you'd be a LOT happier with 2x256 MORE or in this case 256MB more.

 

[magomago]

Hrmm...

I guess the bandwith would be a highway and the end of the highway is a parking lot which is big as the amount of ram you have.

I don't think Dualchannel would play as big of an issue as you might think for this game so I would rather have a bigger parking lot so to say.

Though optimally ou want 2x512 pc3200 and overclocked whateve ryou have to 200mhz FSB

 

[EeyoreX]

Firstly: I don't think dual-channel even provides as much as a 20% increase in performance. There are reviews around, and I think they all showed way less. And secondly, you can keep your dual-channel AND add that other 256MB. If you keep your current RAM in slots 1 and 3 (assuming those are the DC slots on your motherboard, they usually are) you can add the third stick to slot 2. This should keep your DC and add 256MB of RAM. Enjoy!

\Dan

 

[nxh]

thats alot of memory for unreal
maybe you might be better off with dual channel instead of more ram.
it seems like you have enuf ram and dual channel memory mode only gives you a small modest boost in performance around 10% or less i believe.

 

[Corporate Thug]

dual channel makes very little difference with nforce2

 

[ethebubbeth]

on nforce2 boards it's really only like 1 or 2 percent speed increase. if you don't like how it runs with 768mb just go back to dual channel

 

[dguy6789]

dual channel memory is twice as fast, but most programs only need as much memory as the cpu's fsb is using, the spare memroy bandwith only provides increase when you need the bandwith for something. it is twice as fast, but like agp 8x, only gives the increase fi the bandwith is needed,

 

[StraightPipe]

I guess I need to bust out the link to settle this. will be posting anandtech's review of the Nforce2 boards, which they test both ways and show that with a vid card it was like 2-3%

insert linky here


oh yeah, my 768MB runs that game great, it made a huge difference in Battlefield to. (i went from 256 to 768) biggest thing I noticed was load time cut in half.(actually it takes less than half time (30-45 secs compaired to 2-3 mins))

Edit: added that link again...

 

[Amorphus]

there was a rather controversial AMDMB review of a single-channel board which showed that it beat an a7n8x deluxe in almost every benchmark, with the same other hardware. the a7n8x del. was running in dual channel, too.

I attributed it to less errata for the northbridge to handle (as the single-channel board was microATX, I believe), but then again, I could be wrong.

I like Dual-Channel, though. makes me feel good when I run Sandra.

 

[Whitedog]

I was under the impression that is you have 3 sticks of ram in an nForce2 mobo.... two of them will still be running in dual channel mode...

I would read up on that, because I think I'm right.

If that's the case, you should put the extra stick in to give you 768MB.

 

[Whitedog]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
dual channel memory is twice as fast, but most programs only need as much memory as the cpu's fsb is using, the spare memroy bandwith only provides increase when you need the bandwith for something. it is twice as fast, but like agp 8x, only gives the increase fi the bandwith is needed,

Uh... yea, right.

Well said. You get an A+ (an A+ in what I don't know, but sure not in "tech savy")

 

[JeremyJ83]

What graphics card do you have?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: EeyoreX
Firstly: I don't think dual-channel even provides as much as a 20% increase in performance. There are reviews around, and I think they all showed way less. And secondly, you can keep your dual-channel AND add that other 256MB. If you keep your current RAM in slots 1 and 3 (assuming those are the DC slots on your motherboard, they usually are) you can add the third stick to slot 2. This should keep your DC and add 256MB of RAM. Enjoy!

\Dan

What he said - 3 sticks should still run in dual channel mode.

My own testing with AIDA32 showed maybe a 5% increase in RAM transfer speeds with dual channel. I hear that DC's main benefit is when you use an nForce2 board with the integrated graphics - the graphics chip can access the system RAM much easier thanks to there being two main paths to the RAM.