Using XP - is 2GB of RAM faster than 4GB?

[Leyawiin]

Hey all. Had a question that's been bugging me for a while. Last summer (when RAM was still relatively cheap) I bought 4GB DDR3 RAM for my ASUS M4A79T Deluxe motherboard. I'm still using XP and since it can't allocate/recognize/whatever more than 3.25 GB and I'm somehow defeating the dual channel feature of the motherboard? Basically, would 2GB be better performing than 4GB in an XP 32 bit setup? Thanks.

 

[SonicIce]

if you can verify that it's not dual channel then i think it would be slower for most things

 

[Nothinman]

I'm still using XP and since it can't allocate/recognize/whatever more than 3.25 GB and I'm somehow defeating the dual channel feature of the motherboard?

You're not defeating the purpose of dual-channel, that's a hardware feature and AFAIK XP can't disable it. You may not be using the upper 750M of memory but the 3.25G you are using should be interleaved.

Basically, would 2GB be better performing than 4GB in an XP 32 bit setup? Thanks.

If it is it's your hardware's fault, not XP's.

 

[GlacierFreeze]

OP: Dual channel vs single channel performance is pretty insignificant in the large majority of cases. I wouldn't worry about it. Go with 4GB. You'll regret it if you start using pagefile with a 2GB setup. I always say "you can't have too much RAM."

 

[Leyawiin]

Thank you for the replies, and I will get Win 7 someday soon!

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

In rare cases it may be better. Maybe in timing specific applications. It depends. Are you using 2x2gb or 4x1gb? 4x1gb might force your timings to be slower and then yes, for non memory intensive apps that use just a fraction of your memory, but are timing dependent, you'll see 2gb be faster, but in most cases I'm guessing it's good to have more memory as 2gb is not enough for many heavy duty apps nowadays.

 

[GlacierFreeze]

Thank you for the replies, and I will get Win 7 someday soon!

7 won't make a difference unless you get 64-bit version.