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Is Dual Channel A hige Perfomance Increase?
- Thread starter eXx08
- Start date
FlyingPenguin
Golden Member
Memory is not rated for dual channel. All you need for dual channel is two matched sticks. If the mobo is dual channel and you put them in the right slots, you've got dual channel.
Yes you can run 4 stick dual channel but you take a slight performance penalty, and all your sticks should match or at least be the same timing. Don't even think about using 4 sticks if you intend to overclock. 4 sticks is inherently less stable than 2.
Is dual channel a performance increase? Yes? How big? Hard to say - it affects different things differently, but if you're a power user or a serrious gamer then dual channel is a no-brainer.
Yes you can run 4 stick dual channel but you take a slight performance penalty, and all your sticks should match or at least be the same timing. Don't even think about using 4 sticks if you intend to overclock. 4 sticks is inherently less stable than 2.
Is dual channel a performance increase? Yes? How big? Hard to say - it affects different things differently, but if you're a power user or a serrious gamer then dual channel is a no-brainer.
1. If you have 4 memory slots, then they are broken up into 2 colours. Each colour is a "channel" of memory.
2. Memory doesn't have to be listed as "dual channel" to run dual channel. What it means when dimms are called dual channel is that there are 2 sticks of memory that are exact copies of one another. Dual channel runs best when the 2 sticks are balanced, hence the name "dual channel optimised".
3. Using fewer memory slots is always preferable to running more (i.e. using 2 dimms is better than using 4). This is because latency is increased when you have to communicate with more physical devices. This is more true for AMD than Intel because with AMD there is a critical mass (usually when you go past 2 sticks) that prevents you from setting the turnaround setting (1T or 2T) to 1T...using 1T can speed up your system by as much as 20%.
I'm using an intel penium 4 and I'm wondering can I use dual channel of one type of memory (OCZ) and another (kingston). I currently have 2 sticks of 128 kinston and 1 stick of kingmax 256 memory. I'm not running dual channel but it seems that its still faster than just running 2 sticks of 128 kingston. Since I just bought 2 sticks of OCZ 512 sticks I was wondering if it would be wise to use those 2 sticks with the 2 sticks of kingston or would that be a large performance penalty since i'm mixing and matching?
No my mobo does use dual channel its just that I added a 256 kingmax. Before that it was running on dual channel. This also brings up another question though, Is it possible to run dual channel with 3 sticks of ram? 2 of them are the same (2x128 kingston) and one isn't (256 kingmax)?
Rules to Enable Dual Channel Mode
To achieve Dual Channel mode, the following conditions must be met:
Matched DIMM configuration in each channel
Same Density (128MB, 256MB, 512MB, etc.)
Same DRAM technology (128Mb, 256Mb, or 512Mb)
Same DRAM bus width (x8 or x16)
All either single-sided or dual-sided
Matched in both Channel A and Channel B memory channels
Populate symmetrical memory slots (Slot 0 or Slot 1)
Note: Configurations that do not match the above conditions will revert to Single Channel mode.
The following conditions do not need to be met:
Same brand
Same timing specifications
Same DDR speed
Note: All memory will revert to the slowest speed used
To achieve Dual Channel mode, the following conditions must be met:
Matched DIMM configuration in each channel
Same Density (128MB, 256MB, 512MB, etc.)
Same DRAM technology (128Mb, 256Mb, or 512Mb)
Same DRAM bus width (x8 or x16)
All either single-sided or dual-sided
Matched in both Channel A and Channel B memory channels
Populate symmetrical memory slots (Slot 0 or Slot 1)
Note: Configurations that do not match the above conditions will revert to Single Channel mode.
The following conditions do not need to be met:
Same brand
Same timing specifications
Same DDR speed
Note: All memory will revert to the slowest speed used
allanon1965
Diamond Member
your 20% performance gain is a little on the high side....this is an excerpt from crucials website about dual channel performance... "While performance gains from dual-channel chipsets aren't huge, they can increase bandwidth by as much as 10 percent. To those seeking to push the performance envelope, that 10 percent can be very important." so 10 percent is about limit, there are other factors in the equation as well, so 10 percent is not guaranteed, just the max they say it CAN be....most of the time its no more than 3% to 5%.....
stevty2889
Diamond Member
You can have differant brands for your 2 sets of ram, won't hurt anything, just make sure you run at the timings of the slowest sticks. I had a gigabyte 8IK1100 motherboard that had 6 slots for ram, I had 2x256mb sticks of crucial, 2x256mb sticks of centon, and 2x256mb sticks of kingmax all running together in dual channel. Like Viditor said, Intel has high enough latency that you won't take a major hit from running more than 2 sticks of ram, although 2T timings with AMD use cause less than a 5% performance hit, and I think dual channel is about the same. For Intel on the otherhand, not running dual channel is a major peformance hit since P4's are so bandwidth hungry.
EDIT: to answer your other question, no Intel chipsets will run 3 sticks of ram in dual channel, you need pairs. There were some Athlon XP motherboards that could run dual channel with 3 sticks, other than that you need pairs.
EDIT: to answer your other question, no Intel chipsets will run 3 sticks of ram in dual channel, you need pairs. There were some Athlon XP motherboards that could run dual channel with 3 sticks, other than that you need pairs.
The up to 20% performance gain was about the difference between 1T and 2T timings on AMD...
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3800_3.html
Gamingphreek
Lifer
1T gives no 20% gain. At most probably a 7%.
I believe you can run Dual Channel with 3 sticks of RAM. In fact i am almost positive. IIRC you had to balance the channels though. In other words since there were 2 sticks in one channel and one in the other you would need 2x 128mb on Channel A and 1x 256 on Channel B. That way you kepp them balanced.
Other than that Viditors conditions hit the nail on the head.
-Kevin
allanon1965
Diamond Member
sorry, i made an error, i didnt read closely enough, please accept my apologies....
stevty2889
Diamond Member
The biggest hit I took from 2T was 7% with AutoGK encoding. Otherwise it was 3% or less. Not running dual channel on a P4 on the other hand was a much bigger differance.
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