To Dual Channel or Not to Dual Channel

[ZoomStop]

Basically I just bought a CPU/mobo/RAM/video combo off someone in the FS/T forum here and I am loving it (much much faster than my old setup).
But something is bugging me, no dual channel. I am wondering if the speed boost is enough to warrant the trouble of getting a new motherboard and RAM.

Current setup:
AMD 3000+ Barton (333 FSB)
Epox 3k3a+ Motherboard
1 GB RAM (1 512MB Kingston HyperX, 1 512MB Corsair XMS)
Radeon 9800 Pro
DVD drive, CD-RW drive, USB2 card, firewire card, nic card, etc...

So what I am kicking around is getting a new motherboard and a 1 GB dual kit (probably the Corsair one NewEgg has for about $85).
So I would be looking to drop about $135 on all that. Guessing I would be able to see the old RAM & mobo for about $80 here or on fleabay.

So is there a big performance jump? Is it worth the time and trouble of swapping mobo's (and re-installing XP) and putting out $50 - $60? I am on a really tight budget (two great kids, one mediocre job) so dropping another $60 on top of what I just paid would take some serious consideration.

So I turn to your wise ones!

 

[PingSpike]

The Athlon XP never benefited any signifigant amount from running in dual channel like the P4. There would be a small performance increase, not enough to justify the extra cost.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
The Athlon XP never benefited any signifigant amount from running in dual channel like the P4. There would be a small performance increase, not enough to justify the extra cost.

depends, i thought it was a pretty nice gain, but maybes not. eitherway a 2nd hand Nforce 2 motherboard shouldnt set you back much at all

i can get a clearence/B-spec (ie no cables, no original box etc) nforce 2 mobo for less than £25

 

[ZoomStop]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
[depends, i thought it was a pretty nice gain, but maybes not. eitherway a 2nd hand Nforce 2 motherboard shouldnt set you back much at all

i can get a clearence/B-spec (ie no cables, no original box etc) nforce 2 mobo for less than £25

That is true, I could pickup a refurb from NewEgg for like $30 USD, and for the RAM I could check here or eBay for a 512MB module to match one of my current modules, and do the whole thing for maybe $70 less what I sell my old parts for.

But it sounds like a split concensus on if it is worth it.
I have googled around a bit looking for benchmarking results but have found nil. Just that "dual channel is good, get it" but never anything to compare what kind of jump it would give.

Would I be better off attempting to OC the FSB by about 10/15% or something? They are 2700 modules but are the nice ones with heat spreaders and stuff.
I don't even know if I would do that if I could, but is that the kind of performace benifit we would be talking?

 

[Boogak]

It's not worth it for the Athlon XP platform, the performance gained is less than 5% for most apps as evidenced here, the Athlon XP processor is just not memory bandwidth starved like a P4. It's only worth it if you were using the integrated nForce2 graphics, but since you have a standalone 9800 pro, I would use that $60 and upgrade your video card instead, more bang for the buck performance-wise.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: AcidBath

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer
[depends, i thought it was a pretty nice gain, but maybes not. eitherway a 2nd hand Nforce 2 motherboard shouldnt set you back much at all

i can get a clearence/B-spec (ie no cables, no original box etc) nforce 2 mobo for less than £25

That is true, I could pickup a refurb from NewEgg for like $30 USD, and for the RAM I could check here or eBay for a 512MB module to match one of my current modules, and do the whole thing for maybe $70 less what I sell my old parts for.

But it sounds like a split concensus on if it is worth it.
I have googled around a bit looking for benchmarking results but have found nil. Just that "dual channel is good, get it" but never anything to compare what kind of jump it would give.

Would I be better off attempting to OC the FSB by about 10/15% or something? They are 2700 modules but are the nice ones with heat spreaders and stuff.
I don't even know if I would do that if I could, but is that the kind of performace benifit we would be talking?

You're right about the concensus being that its good without much merit to back the statement. This happens a lot with PC components. It its certainly better, but is it better enough to justify the cost? I remember toms hardware doing a comparison of pc133 cl2 versus cl3 sdram sticks way back. The performance difference was like 2-3% by their own benchmarks and they said in the conclusion that cl2 was required if you wanted any kind of performance out of your system. :roll: That was about when I stopped taking toms so seriously. (This was back when cl2 had a pretty heavy premium over cl3)

Its my opinion that dual channel on the athlon XP was introduced more as a marketing gimic then anything. P4s had dual channel and really benefited from it, so the athlon needed them too. It does offer a performance gain, but over on overclockers.com forums pretty much everyone disabled dual channel to get a higher FSB. The gains they made by running single channel there usually outpaced any performance increase dual channel had offered them. I always ran mine on dual channel, but thats because my cpu had an unlocked multiplier and I just didn't feel like getting into FSB overclocking at the time.

If you're hot on dual channel, snag a cheap nforce2 board and stick the ram you've got in there. (I'm assuming this ram is rated for 400ddr?) Mismatched sticks usually work in dual channel anyway. If they don't then you can buy new ram. No sense spending more money when you don't have too I say. You can play with it too if you want to overclock, try pushing the fsb higher while in single versus dual, you'll never get as high in dual. And it seemed like all the folks over at ocforums were getting the best performance out of the single channel when all was said and done.

You said you were on a tight budget, and I just don't think you'll see much of a gain for the money put in.

 

[ZoomStop]

Thanks for all the replies and very solid advice here folks!
In this instance I'll just stick with what I have and maybe play around with overclocking the CPU/FSB a bit.
I guess I can use the $60 and get the kids some christmas presents if I can't find any other computer parts I need