Ram question.

Big B · Rated NC-17 Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 194

I have a question on ram.

Is two sticks faster or better then four sticks of ram.

Right now i have four sticks of ram.

2x-256mb
2x512mb

1.5 GB of ram.

Will i get better performance with removing the two 256 sticks? and run just 1 GB of ram.

**Doctor Feelgood** · Posted: Thu, 18 May 2006 22:40:07 Post Subject:

You should benchmark it to test it, but my experience is that 2x 512MB alone might be best.

That said, the total capacity of your memory may help you more than any speed hit that may arise from your system trying to read from the various modules on different channels.

Also, if the memory has different specifications, the system is only going to be running as fast / tight as the weakest pair.

Just make sure that the sets are on matched slots to be in dual channel mode.

Maybe download Everest's memory benchmark and see what 2x 512 does for you and then what all four modules does.

Big B · Rated NC-17 Joined: 30 Apr 2006 Posts: 194

ok will try that later.

by the way my case swap worked just fine so far nothing seems to be wrong drop temps about 7 to 10 C. The Sagitta is a nice case for the price.everything went in easy and with little troubles.

thanks

mrweasel · Posted: Fri, 19 May 2006 09:23:56 Post Subject:

I concur. everything I've read about 2 sitcks vs 4 sticks shows 2 sticks is faster. Must have something to do with less stuff to address.

BeerCheeze · Posted: Fri, 19 May 2006 11:47:36 Post Subject:

2GB x 4 = 8GB and who cares!

Laughing

Yea right. But 2x is normally able to OC and take tighter timings than 4x. But as BB stated sometimes the extra memory is worth it.

Spotpuff · Rated PG Joined: 24 May 2006 Posts: 12

It depends what platform you are running, but generally less sticks is better.

For Athlon 64's, 4 sticks generally forces you to run your RAM in 2T command rate instead of 1T. In real world applications this has very little effect. You're only going to see huge differences in memory benchmarks.

Generally speaking you will enjoy having more RAM than running in 1T command rate, but YMMV.