How much faster with one ram module?

[silencer534]

I have a shuttle SN25P, it only has 2 RAM slots for dual channel, I currently have 2 512s in them. I was wondering how much performance hit will I take if I just put 1 1GB stick in for now, and upgrade to 2GB later?

tia

 

[coomar]

it shouldn't be that bad, the cpu's aren't bandwith starved

 

[nick1985]

maybe a couple percent at best. i wouldnt worry about it

 

[BOLt]

Debatable.

AT seems to say that 1T and dual-channel make a big difference, but the AT forum-goers tend to say otherwise. Not sure. Wish there were some definitive, quantitative conclusions. Please post here if there is. Thanks from both me and silencer534.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: BOLt
Debatable.

AT seems to say that 1T and dual-channel make a big difference, but the AT forum-goers tend to say otherwise. Not sure. Wish there were some definitive, quantitative conclusions. Please post here if there is. Thanks from both me and silencer534.

The stickied thread in CPU/Processors/Overclocking seems pretty conclusive (at least for A64s).

I don't think there's really much discrepancy. High speed and low timings makes your synthetic memory benchmarks much, much better (for all intents and purposes, Q3 at 640x480 is a synthetic memory benchmark). But it has a relatively small real-world impact (unless you are constantly running something memory-bound, but most people are not).

 

[entropy1982]

umm... if we are talking about dual channel ram it would take a huge hit

 

[nick1985]

Originally posted by: entropy1982
umm... if we are talking about dual channel ram it would take a huge hit

umm...no it wouldnt be

 

[bob4432]

theoretically it would take a hit but the memory bandwidth is not used 100% all the time an a64s are not bandwidth starved.

on my p4 i can notice a difference from 1x512 vs 2x256 in the "overall" experience including gaming.