geil golden dragon confusion

daweeze02

Golden Member
Jan 20, 2003
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Well first off i had 2x256 corsair xms pc3200 running dual channel at 6-3-3-2. But i found that i needed more ram but I didn't want to spend too much so I got a 512 stick of Golden Dragon. But i didn't know that when you run dual channel with GD that it wont run at its specs of 6-3-3-2(this only works in single channel)so like there website said i changed it to 8-4-4-2, but didnt work. So then i tried 8-4-4-2.5 and ya now windows does mess up.

Anyways getting to the point, with my 2x256 corsair and 1x512 GD at 8-4-4-2.5 i am getting better scores than with my 2x256 of corsair at 6-3-3-2. Can anyone explain this.
 

daweeze02

Golden Member
Jan 20, 2003
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no im getting better scores with 8-4-4-2.5 timings with my corsair in bank 1&2 and my geil in bank 3, than when i had the corsair by itself in 1&3 or 2&3 at 6-3-3-2.



 

Slappy00

Golden Member
Jun 17, 2002
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probably b/c you are not running in duel channel mode anymore... I think you nee dto have all 4 banks filled to use it, or the MB sees em as individual channels, try running some memory bandwidth tests (sisoft sandra) to confirm this.

I really cant tell you why this is happening maybe something with the timeings... GEiL is some quirky memory let me tell you...
 

Soulkeeper

Diamond Member
Nov 23, 2001
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i noticed that putting my two memory modules in slots 2 and 3 gave me slightly worse performance in synthetic mem benchs and slightly better performance in synthetic cpu tests than 1 and 3 did

could be a number of things done by the chipset and motherboard maker
 

daweeze02

Golden Member
Jan 20, 2003
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but i am running in dual channel you see i have a total of 512 in bank 1&2 and 512 total in bank 3.....i only have 3 slots total...and it says dual channel when i boot. im going to email geil and see what they say.
 

Slappy00

Golden Member
Jun 17, 2002
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yah but it seems odd that your mobo could run in both duel (banks 1&2) and single (bank 3). I tend to think its one or the other (all duel or all single).
 

daweeze02

Golden Member
Jan 20, 2003
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no as long a you have the same amount on each side it means it duel. so 2x256 on one side and 1x512 on the other makes it dual channel.


To take advantage of your situation i would rather buy a 512 chip and put it into slot 3 and with the 2-256's in slots 1&2. This way it would be 512 on each bridge and at the same time make it in sync and give you 1gig of ram. Also make sure they are the same speed of ram or the ram will default to the lowest common denominator.


Here thats from someone www.nforcershq.com Now you might understand what im saying.
 

Slappy00

Golden Member
Jun 17, 2002
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ohh ok I get it.... (I just had to think for a moment, using color-coding helps) .... Well I still cant seem to figure it out why it would be faster in that configuration, I'll leave it to someone that knows more about how ram works on an engineering level.