Real world performance gain for dual vs. single channel DDR?

[RalphTheCow]

http://www.kingston.com/newtec...F_520DDRwhitepaper.pdf

As near as I can tell from the following link, it isn't that huge. On the one hand it shows that memory access time is directly halved, yet on benchmarks like the Winstone content creation it looks like only a few percent. So which is it?

How much does it help for things like game loading? Would that be the main area of benefit, or would it be something else?

 

[ts3433]

This all depends on what platform you're talking about. Pentium 4s really benefit from it, because memory bandwidth is a huge factor in performance. It also helps quite a bit on Athlon XP systems running the nForce2 IGP integrated graphics, because the added bandwidth that the Athlon XP can't use is directed to the GPU. Otherwise, though, it makes nearly no difference with the Athlon XP because its 64-bit-wide memory path can't utilize a 128-bit-wide dual channel data stream. (My wording might be wrong here, but it should adequately convey the general idea.) On the Athlon 64, it increases performance about 5-10% at the same clock speed, and is why Socket 939 processors can be PR-rated the same as their Socket 754 counterparts while being clocked 200MHz slower.

 

[Cerb]

P4: dual-channel will give benefits in every area to some degree (less for office stuff, more for encoding and games).
AXP: dual-channel OK, but not important. If you need 1GB of RAM or more, go dual.
A64: dual-channel is nice for encoding, but otherwise not terribly important. Other features of the sockets and chipsets should make influence your purchasing decision, not dual-channel RAM. The s939 PR ratings work because they are nice at encoding, and the s754 parts were rated conservatively.