must I use dual channel w/Intel 865

[sprint113]

I've recently purchase a Intel 865 MB, and according to the site, it says that it uses Dual Channel DDR etc etc... does this mean I must install the memory in pairs or that dual channel is an optional feature.

 

[SnowBoarder9455]

You can do either on the 875p, I lent 1 of my 2 sticks away for a weekend and it was running, but WAY slower. So I assume you could do the same on the 865, but the performance hit is noticable without needing a benchmark or anything. (The slow down might have come when i went from 512 megs to 256megs)

Overclocking doesn't work too well with single channel.

Kevin

 

[tallman45]

Here are some theoretical bandwidth numbers that may help you decide:

PC2100 Single Channel: 2.1gb/sec
PC2100 Dual Channel: 4.2 gb/sec
PC2700 Single channel: 2.7 gb/sec
PC2700 Dual Channel: 5.4 gb/sec
PC3200 Single Channel: 3.2 gb/sec
PC3200 Dual Channel: 6.4 gb/sec

Dual channel functionality is a key function of the 865/875 chipset, if you have no intention of using it that way then there are a lot of excellant 845PE motherboards out there. You can definately run mixed capacity pairs, but you loose a ton of performance. I just build a system using 1gb of PC2700 ram in dual channel mode, it was cheaper that 512 of PC3200 and I feel the extra 512 was greater benefit than the extra 1gb/sec bandwidth.

 

[Tom]

You can run single channel in an 865.

Will be slightly better or slightly worse than an 845pe with the big advantage that at some point you can go to dual channel.