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Single Channel Memory vs Dual Channel Memory

3

302efi

Golden Member
Say I have 1 x 512mb HyperX 3200 running at 5-3-3-2.5 @ 200mhz

Now lets assume I have 2 x256 HyperX 3200 running at 5-3-3-2.5 @200mhz


Everything being equal except the single stick running single channel and the 2 sticks running dual channel, no over-clocking.

How much more preformance is the dual channel ?
 
I may be wrong, but I think it's about 5-7%. I think Intel CPUs get a better bump from dual channel than AMD processors do.
 
p4 benefits more than the athlon, all other things can't be equal, the chips are not created equally. if you are running a athlon i wouldn't worry about it, but if i was running a p4 i would worry about it. also, what application? i can't quote numbers but there are benchmarks about this on the site under cpus and how they deal with single/dual channel memory.
 
I ran a Soltek Nforce 2 dual channel mobo with my Athlon XP 2100+ @ ~180fsb (ram @100%) for about a year with great results.
Recently the PSU or mobo died..not sure which but I cooked the mobo trying to find out.

Anyhow in a rush to get my PC going again I bought a Gigabyte 7VM400M-RZ (KM400 chipset) , reformatted my HD and tweaked it out as good as it was going to get..even OCed a hair with what little abilities I had...still the system sucked compared to how it was with the Soltek board.

I returned the 7vm400m and bought a Gigabyte ga700n Pro 2 Nforce 2 Ultra board, I tweaked it out and am only running it at 166fsb/ram 100% and my system is once again fast.


My other PC is a P4 3ghz 800fsb Dell 8300 and it benches a hell of alot faster but it does not seem a whole lot faster. Windows may even be slightly faster on my AMD PC.

 
Originally posted by: 302efi
The CPU being a 3000XP and mostly used for gaming and sufing the net.
Click to expand...

you will find a 1% increase with dual channel, if even taht. because of its shorter pipelines, the k7 cannot utilize dual channel anywhere near as effective as the P4.
 
Damn!! hardly even 1% !!!??? The way the companies advertise Dual Channel for AMD XP boards, you would think it would be at least a 10%-20% or more advantage 🙂
 
I wonder if anyone will even read this, seeing as its an old thread. Anyways, so now we have A64.. what is the dual channel benefit there? I am considering 1x1GB RAM (leaving room to upgrade later to 2GB), however I will go 2x512 MB if there is any real benefit. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
 

I also started this thread with the same question but I can't seem to get much responce. I see that dual channel is recommended for A64 754-based boards, but I can't seem to understand why if they don't support dual channel??

Go figure.
 
Originally posted by: Mik3y
Originally posted by: 302efi
The CPU being a 3000XP and mostly used for gaming and sufing the net.
Click to expand...

you will find a 1% increase with dual channel, if even taht. because of its shorter pipelines, the k7 cannot utilize dual channel anywhere near as effective as the P4.
Click to expand...

Err, I don't think so. The K7 does have shorter pipelines, but I don't think that's the reason for its inability to utilize more memory bandwidth.
 
OK - from what I am hearing dual channel is not necessary, so going with 1x1GB is okay. This leads me to a new question. 1GB modules have slower speeds (OCZ 3-3-3-8 is best I've seen). Is this too slow to overclock well? Could this be the factor that makes me choose 2x512MB?
 
Originally posted by: Goi
Originally posted by: Mik3y
Originally posted by: 302efi
The CPU being a 3000XP and mostly used for gaming and sufing the net.
Click to expand...

you will find a 1% increase with dual channel, if even taht. because of its shorter pipelines, the k7 cannot utilize dual channel anywhere near as effective as the P4.
Click to expand...

Err, I don't think so. The K7 does have shorter pipelines, but I don't think that's the reason for its inability to utilize more memory bandwidth.
Click to expand...

the k7's FSB is saturated by a single channel of synchronous ddr memory, in theory.
 
Sigma

Timings aren't life and death.

I'd just get 2x512 because it's normally cheaper than the larger 1GB modules.

You may also run into some issues using DIMMs that large if you ever try and use it in another motherboard.
 
Originally posted by: Sigma1071
OK - from what I am hearing dual channel is not necessary, so going with 1x1GB is okay. This leads me to a new question. 1GB modules have slower speeds (OCZ 3-3-3-8 is best I've seen). Is this too slow to overclock well? Could this be the factor that makes me choose 2x512MB?
Click to expand...

As a general rule, if you want to overclock it is an advantage to have as few modules as possible.

I don't see why you would not go dual-channel but then overclock the RAM 🙂
 
There are performance increases WITH Dual Channel on both K7 and K8 cpu's. Certain benches gain more than others, but even Anand comments on the K7 gaining almost 20% on a couple benches with dual channel over single. The A64 also gained 16% on a couple benches. Of course the average is 5%-8%. BUT there IS a gain of MORE than the 1% someone above said.


Jason
 
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