Well I finally did it.

[dabuddha]

I just purchased a DFI LANPARTY NFII ULTRA B and an AMD XP 3000+ proc. The one thing I didn't buy is the memory. I'd like to run it in dual channel mode.

http://www.circuitcity.com/detail.jsp?oid=87385
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-145-440&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-144-310&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-310&depa=1

My max limit is $250. I can't justify spending anymore with my wife I tried asking in Gen Hardware but I got no response and I have to order something within the hour. Any help would be appreciated

 

[EXman]

Easy Mushkin!

that Geil has poopy settings corsair is a close second just because it is so cheap!

 

[Balthazar]

I have been very happy with my OCZ ram, you can buy 1GB of PC3500 for $240 ar newegg, I think its even a dual channel certified kit.

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: Balthazar
I have been very happy with my OCZ ram, you can buy 1GB of PC3500 for $240 ar newegg, I think its even a dual channel certified kit.

Like this one?

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=20-146-950&depa=1

 

[Balthazar]

That be the one.
I run mine at 5-3-2-2 even though it isnt "supposed" to run that high....love it, plan on buying that exact 1GB upgrade when I drop my 512 set in a few weeks.

 

[dabuddha]

is OCZ ram any good? I haven't heard much about it (I've been out of the hw scene for quite some time.)

 

[dxkj]

If you are looking at the mushkin


http://www.mushkin.com/epages/Mushkin.storefront/40926d5c024080ea2740c0a80102064e/Product/View/991140



$264 * .9 = about $8 savings over newegg, not sure about shipping price differences though


oh and the mushkin site its 2.5 33 vs 2.5 44 at newegg

 

[PanzerIV]

Originally posted by: dabuddha
is OCZ ram any good? I haven't heard much about it (I've been out of the hw scene for quite some time.)

A lot of people won't use OCZ because of some shady dealings they had awhile back. I can't vouch for how they are now because I don't user their stuff or keep up with them. I have Kingston HyperX in my system and it overclocks beautifully. Each to his own but that's my preference.

 

[dabuddha]

Would I be better off getting two sticks of these?

http://www.mushkin.com/epages/Mushkin.storefront/40926d5c024080ea2740c0a80102064e/Product/View/991085

Will I be able to run them in dual channel or do I have to get a kit?

 

[PanzerIV]

Originally posted by: dabuddha
Would I be better off getting two sticks of these?

http://www.mushkin.com/epages/Mushkin.storefront/40926d5c024080ea2740c0a80102064e/Product/View/991085

Will I be able to run them in dual channel or do I have to get a kit?

People get confused by that easily. All dual channel is are two of the same sticks like 256MB x2 of PC3200. It's not a special thing you have to get. So called "kits" just make it easy for the lay person to get what they need without making a mistake and may be cheaper in some cases.

 

[Balthazar]

Thats partially true but, speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that I have bought, at the same time from the same place, two sticks of ram that refused to work together in dual channel....and thats basicly all the "kits" do for you, it's gauranteed to work in dual channel, otherwise if you get a particularly abhorrent stick of ram that just refuses to cooperate the manu. might not take it back, I also don't know if there is any price savings in just buying two single sticks of ram.

Either way the odds of you having a problem are slim to none so no its not particularly vital.

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: PanzerIV

Originally posted by: dabuddha
Would I be better off getting two sticks of these?

http://www.mushkin.com/epages/Mushkin.storefront/40926d5c024080ea2740c0a80102064e/Product/View/991085

Will I be able to run them in dual channel or do I have to get a kit?

People get confused by that easily. All dual channel is are two of the same sticks like 256MB x2 of PC3200. It's not a special thing you have to get. So called "kits" just make it easy for the lay person to get what they need without making a mistake and may be cheaper in some cases.

I just ordered this for $248 bucks shipped. Not bad I suppose.

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: Balthazar
Thats partially true but, speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that I have bought, at the same time from the same place, two sticks of ram that refused to work together in dual channel....and thats basicly all the "kits" do for you, it's gauranteed to work in dual channel, otherwise if you get a particularly abhorrent stick of ram that just refuses to cooperate the manu. might not take it back, I also don't know if there is any price savings in just buying two single sticks of ram.

Either way the odds of you having a problem are slim to none so no its not particularly vital.

Can you point me towards an article about dual channel? I'd like to read up on it and see what it's all about

Thanks for all of the information btw guys!

 

[PanzerIV]

dabuddha, here is an encapsulation of DC I found:

How Dual Channel DDR works

Dual Channel DDR works by giving the north bridge two independent controllers to access two sets of memory. To put things in simpler terms, think of a stick of DDR as a two way bridge. DDR achieves double the data rate of normal SDR memory by allowing an independent data path for upstream and downstream travel; much like how a bridge or road works. The theoretical maximum amount of bandwidth for a stick of DDR400 is 3.2GB per second. Like a bridge with a speed limit, the amount of throughput achieved varies depending on the type of data it deals with.

With Dual Channel DDR, the data path is doubled once again by using two sticks of DDR memory. By giving the CPU/north bridge another data path to the memory, bandwidth is effectively doubled, giving Dual Channel DDR400 6.4GB/s. In simple terms, think of DCDDR as widening the bridge by adding two more lanes. This effectively allows more data to travel faster; much like traffic moving faster when there?re more lanes to drive in. The downside to this is traditional DCDDR solutions require pairs of same sizes.

In more technical terms, DDR memory is 64bit and communicates with the CPU/north bridge at 64bit. Dual Channel DDR can operate in two modes. One mode is it accesses the memory in 128bit mode, which is how most DCDDR chipsets operate. The other mode is it communicates with the two memory controllers in 2x64bit mode, treating each controller individually.


Just google if you want more info. It's all over the place. This info came from here.

Incidentally Mushkin is good stuff too so don't worry. I have some in my kid's machine and it's been working great for years.

EDIT: Forgot to mention the reality is with AMD systems DC shows little increase in performance when compared to Intel. I am an AMD guy, though and will take every bit I can get regardless since I wanted 1GB of RAM anyway.

 

[Balthazar]

Yeah Mushkin is good stuff for sure....Corsair used to be really good but I haven't had great luck with it as of late.

 

[dabuddha]

Originally posted by: PanzerIV
dabuddha, here is an encapsulation of DC I found:

How Dual Channel DDR works

Dual Channel DDR works by giving the north bridge two independent controllers to access two sets of memory. To put things in simpler terms, think of a stick of DDR as a two way bridge. DDR achieves double the data rate of normal SDR memory by allowing an independent data path for upstream and downstream travel; much like how a bridge or road works. The theoretical maximum amount of bandwidth for a stick of DDR400 is 3.2GB per second. Like a bridge with a speed limit, the amount of throughput achieved varies depending on the type of data it deals with.

With Dual Channel DDR, the data path is doubled once again by using two sticks of DDR memory. By giving the CPU/north bridge another data path to the memory, bandwidth is effectively doubled, giving Dual Channel DDR400 6.4GB/s. In simple terms, think of DCDDR as widening the bridge by adding two more lanes. This effectively allows more data to travel faster; much like traffic moving faster when there?re more lanes to drive in. The downside to this is traditional DCDDR solutions require pairs of same sizes.

In more technical terms, DDR memory is 64bit and communicates with the CPU/north bridge at 64bit. Dual Channel DDR can operate in two modes. One mode is it accesses the memory in 128bit mode, which is how most DCDDR chipsets operate. The other mode is it communicates with the two memory controllers in 2x64bit mode, treating each controller individually.


Just google if you want more info. It's all over the place. This info came from here.

Incidentally Mushkin is good stuff too so don't worry. I have some in my kid's machine and it's been working great for years.

EDIT: Forgot to mention the reality is with AMD systems DC shows little increase in performance when compared to Intel. I am an AMD guy, though and will take every bit I can get regardless since I wanted 1GB of RAM anyway.

Ahh thanks for the summary The one thing I'm not too clear about is if I put 2 512 meg sticks of memory in Dual Channel, will my system see only 512 meg of memory or the whole 1 gig? Would it be a fair comparison to say dual channel is "similar" to raid?

 

[PanzerIV]

Originally posted by: dabuddha

Originally posted by: PanzerIV
dabuddha, here is an encapsulation of DC I found:

How Dual Channel DDR works

Dual Channel DDR works by giving the north bridge two independent controllers to access two sets of memory. To put things in simpler terms, think of a stick of DDR as a two way bridge. DDR achieves double the data rate of normal SDR memory by allowing an independent data path for upstream and downstream travel; much like how a bridge or road works. The theoretical maximum amount of bandwidth for a stick of DDR400 is 3.2GB per second. Like a bridge with a speed limit, the amount of throughput achieved varies depending on the type of data it deals with.

With Dual Channel DDR, the data path is doubled once again by using two sticks of DDR memory. By giving the CPU/north bridge another data path to the memory, bandwidth is effectively doubled, giving Dual Channel DDR400 6.4GB/s. In simple terms, think of DCDDR as widening the bridge by adding two more lanes. This effectively allows more data to travel faster; much like traffic moving faster when there?re more lanes to drive in. The downside to this is traditional DCDDR solutions require pairs of same sizes.

In more technical terms, DDR memory is 64bit and communicates with the CPU/north bridge at 64bit. Dual Channel DDR can operate in two modes. One mode is it accesses the memory in 128bit mode, which is how most DCDDR chipsets operate. The other mode is it communicates with the two memory controllers in 2x64bit mode, treating each controller individually.


Just google if you want more info. It's all over the place. This info came from here.

Incidentally Mushkin is good stuff too so don't worry. I have some in my kid's machine and it's been working great for years.

EDIT: Forgot to mention the reality is with AMD systems DC shows little increase in performance when compared to Intel. I am an AMD guy, though and will take every bit I can get regardless since I wanted 1GB of RAM anyway.

Ahh thanks for the summary The one thing I'm not too clear about is if I put 2 512 meg sticks of memory in Dual Channel, will my system see only 512 meg of memory or the whole 1 gig? Would it be a fair comparison to say dual channel is "similar" to raid?

No. If you put two 512 MB sticks of RAM in your system running as DC you will see it as 1GB. I have 1GB of HyperX PC2700 OC'd to PC3200 in that configuration and it sees mine just fine.

Also, no RAID and DC are really not alike at all. RAID has to do with bits and data storage while the DC has to do with bandwidth throughput to the CPU/North Bridge.

 

[Ausm]

I exclusively use mushkin RAM.


Sysadmin

 

[lsman]

Originally posted by: dabuddha

Originally posted by: Balthazar
Thats partially true but, speaking from personal experience, I can tell you that I have bought, at the same time from the same place, two sticks of ram that refused to work together in dual channel....and thats basicly all the "kits" do for you, it's gauranteed to work in dual channel, otherwise if you get a particularly abhorrent stick of ram that just refuses to cooperate the manu. might not take it back, I also don't know if there is any price savings in just buying two single sticks of ram.

Either way the odds of you having a problem are slim to none so no its not particularly vital.

Can you point me towards an article about dual channel? I'd like to read up on it and see what it's all about

Thanks for all of the information btw guys!

http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.asp?qid=3751