dual chanel + single chanel?

Drak55 · Aug 11, 2003

well I'm running 1 stick of corsair 3200 whats the benifit to running dual chanel and if I was to get 2 sticks of 256mb dual chanel ram can I still use my 512 at the same time?

Mhypertext · Aug 11, 2003

i believe it takes it out of dual channel

like if u have a dual channel board with 6 dimms u use the first and last to run dual if u throw in another stick in i believe it takes it out of dual channel mode

Jarlax3 · Aug 11, 2003

For Duel Channel to work you need to have matching memory in either 2 or 4 slots. If you have matching memory and the board is running in DC mode, adding in the 512 would cause it to stop running DC.

Drak55 · Aug 11, 2003

my board only has 3 mem slots 2 together and 1 is apart.
so me getting some DC mem. I shouldnt run the 512mb I have now hum looks like ebay listing for that stick man and I just got it less than a month ago I payed 138 for it but that was with shipping

q149 · Aug 11, 2003

That's not true. Put the 512 in the lone channel and the 2x256 in the channel with 2 slots and it will be dual channel.

TheMatrixHasYou · Aug 11, 2003

Um... if he already has a 512 stick, why not just get another 512 stick and run it in dual channel that way? Wouldn't that give him better performance?

Jarlax3 · Aug 11, 2003

q149 said:
That's not true. Put the 512 in the lone channel and the 2x256 in the channel with 2 slots and it will be dual channel.

I am not saying that you are wrong, god knows I am not a overclocking guru, but I am curious how this would work?

When the machine goes to write to the memory how will it work between using the DC and the single channel? It cannot be writing faster to the DC and then slower to the single and be optimal. I would think that even if the 2 sticks are running duel channel they would be limited to the single channel just for stability sake?

Again, not flaming at all I am really curious?

q149 · Aug 11, 2003

I don't know what you are saying. If you do that then there is 2 channels with 512mb in each channel and it's running dual channel.

SeanOMatic · Aug 11, 2003

I believe Q149 is correct.

Just to test this, I put 2x 256 MB sticks in slots 1&2 and a 512 in slot 3. It was of the same memory, but in CPUZ, it did say it was running dual channel.

Jarlax3 · Aug 11, 2003

q149 said:
I don't know what you are saying. If you do that then there is 2 channels with 512mb in each channel and it's running dual channel.

Ah I think I get it. Let me see if I can explain why I was confused.

So his board has 3 slots. 1&2 that are together and 3 which is "seperate". I thought that the duel channel ran between slots 1&2 only. But I am taking aguess that he can run DC with either 1 & 3 populated (2 sticks of the same amount), 2&3 populated (2 sticks of the same amount), or with 1, 2, & 3 populated (memory in 1 + 2=memory in slot 3 i.e. 256+256=512).

so he could not put a 128 in slot 1, a 256 in slot 2 and a 512 in slot 3 and run in DC.

Am I getting the picture now?

I am use to the requirements for DC in the Intel side which seem to be a little stricter.

JKeefe · Aug 11, 2003

Check the A7N8X manul for dual- and single-channel configurations.

I don't think there is any motherboard avialable that can run DC on three memory sticks.

q149 · Aug 11, 2003

JKeefe said:
Check the A7N8X manul for dual- and single-channel configurations.

I don't think there is any motherboard avialable that can run DC on three memory sticks.

I think you missed the other posts.

Jarlax, your confusing me again but any time you are running 3 sticks it is dual channel mode.. obviously you want the same amount of memory on each channel though. Of course it would be better to just get 2 sticks of the same size, but if you are in a position like him where you have say 2x256 then you can get 1x512 and still run DC with 1gb of memory.

Jarlax3 · Aug 11, 2003

q149,

I only have the Intel side of things to compare with, and on the Intel side what he is suggesting will not work. But the Intel boards are broken into 4 slots of 2 channels.

In this case I do believe I understand how the AMD board is working, even if I am doing a poor job of explaining it!

I will just close my Intel based mouth and leave this one to the AMD crowd. Forget I said anything...ignore the man behind the curtain...

JKeefe · Aug 11, 2003

q149 said:
I think you missed the other posts.

I didn't miss them - I don't think they are correct. This is easily cleared up by checking the A7N8X manual. I'm sure it covers all possible DIMM configurations and whether they will enable dual channel or not.

Like Jarlax, maybe my Intel brain is messing with me. AMDs may be different. I still don't think there are motherboards that can run DC with 3 memory modules - it goes against the nature of dual channel.

Check the motherboard manual.

q149 · Aug 11, 2003

Well, unless a7v8x is different from all the other nForce2 boards that's just how it is.

method().man · Aug 12, 2003

The 2 x 256 Sticks would run in dual channel whereas the lone 512 stick would be single channel. I'm not sure how this would exactly work out in performance, but I believe your computer will try to access the dual channel memory first before resorting to the 512 single channel memory.

JKeefe · Aug 12, 2003

you can't have dual channel and then single channel. That would mean there are three possible channels, but in reality there are only two.

q149 · Aug 12, 2003

I don't think any of you have even used an nForce2 board.. There are 2 channels.. you use the lone slot and one(or both) of the close together slots for dual channel, not only the 2 close together ones. It is made so you can use 3 sticks in dual channel mode. One channel has two slots and one channel has 1 slot. You can not run in single channel with 3 sticks of ram.. only with 1 stick in any slot or 2 sticks in the close together slots.

Buhammot · Aug 12, 2003

According to the manual as posted on the asus site "To enhance system performance, utilize dual-channel feature when installing additional DIMMs. Install the DIMMs in any of the following sequence: Sockets 1 & 3 or Sockets 2 & 3 or Sockets 1, 2 & 3.

That is all that is said on the installation of memory from the manual. anything else is anyones guess

Jarlax3 · Aug 12, 2003

It is an interesting setup that goes against the way Intel boards are put together.

The motherboard has two memory banks. One with 2 slots and one with 1. When both banks are populated with the same amount of memory then the board runs in DC. But where it gets confusing is that the bank with two slots can have 1 or 2 memory chips in it.

The point is that as long as the two banks have the same amount of memory (in this case 256+256 in one and 512 in the other) then the board will run in DC.

This is very different from the way Intel boards work. Does it make it better or worse...well that is not the issue and who cares.

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