Question about the DFI LANParty UT nF3-250G

[slinky22]

On the Anandtech review for this mobo, they mention "for best performance, you should use one DIMM, but performance with 2 DIMMs is also impressive, as the DFI is as good or better with 2 dimms than the best of the Athlon 64 boards that we have tested." I'm confused by this statement, does this mean that 1 stick of 1gig ram is better than 2 sticks? I always though the more RAM the merrier so this is confusing for me.

 

[slinky22]

Also, I'm looking to OC this board but I only plan to use the 380w power supply that come stock with the Antec Sonata case. Is that enough power if I'm also using a 6800GT?

 

[acivick]

Basically, the more sticks of RAM you use, the harder it is to OC, at least for the A64. Has something to do with the memory controller, I think. Anyway, it's able to push one stick of some RAM further than if you were to have 2 sticks of said RAM. There are, however, ways around this, such as setting the command rate from 1T to 2T, which increases the ability to OC the RAM at a 1:1 ratio w/ the FSB/HTT by increasing its stability.

And assuming that your PSU is decent (and if it's an Antec, it should be) you should have no problems running that setup.

 

[Concillian]

It's still best to use 2x512MB simply because you can get much better RAM in 512MB sticks than in 1gig sticks. The RAM that comes in 1 gig sticks is generally significantly slower than the 512MB counterpart because the process on those higher density chips is not as well developed as the lower density chips used in 256MB and 512MB DIMMs.

The motherboard deals better with 1 DIMM, but when you take into account the memory available to get to 1 gig, you're way better off with 2x512MB DIMMs.