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Does Dual-Channel mean ONLY TWO (of 3) SLOTS?

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dreammmatt

Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2002
hi all! as subject asks... If my A7N8x Dx has 3 slots...if they are all filled... am i still in DC? or...how would that work?
 
My understanding is yes, you would be running dual channel. Two of the memory slots (the 2 close together) are on one channel and the third is on the other channel. Most of this "identical sticks installed in pairs" stuff comes from the old RDRAM days.
 
slot 1 and 3 or slot 2 and 3 are dual channel.... single channel is 1 and 2 make sure you run dual with the same side memory and brand. it works better that way:D
 
325cic said:
slot 1 and 3 or slot 2 and 3 are dual channel.... single channel is 1 and 2 make sure you run dual with the same side memory and brand. it works better that way:D

Yes, but the question was, is running slots 1 and 2 and 3 still dual channel. AFAIK it is.
 
deadkenny said:


Yes, but the question was, is running slots 1 and 2 and 3 still dual channel. AFAIK it is.


yes it is only if u got the really good match on the memory. u can run 2 x 256 on 1 and 2 while 1 x 512 on 3... that also dual channel. if u got a good matched memory. u can do that.. otherwhile u won't get best performance out of it. best use 2 x 512 and same brand memory...
 
okay, because i have two 256MB Corsair XMS low latency DIMMs and since a friend just got a gig of ram, i feel pathetic with only 512, and was considering getting a 512MB stick - - any recommendations? I should prolly stick with Corsair, huh?
 
dreammmatt said:
okay, because i have two 256MB Corsair XMS low latency DIMMs and since a friend just got a gig of ram, i feel pathetic with only 512, and was considering getting a 512MB stick - - any recommendations? I should prolly stick with Corsair, huh?

yup.. I think alot of people agree corsair are really good for asus board. so stick with it...:D
 
325cic said:



yes it is only if u got the really good match on the memory. u can run 2 x 256 on 1 and 2 while 1 x 512 on 3... that also dual channel.


wait a minute. thats not right. duel cahnnel utilizes BOTH a channel 1 slot and a channel 2 slot. since channel one has two dimm slots and cahnnel 2 only has one dimm slot, then you need a mathced pair of ram sticks ,1 in a channel one dimm(dimm slots one and two), and one in the cahnnel 2 dimm(dimm slot 3 only). then your other 512 stick goes into the other channel one slot.
my question is if all 3 dimms are filled, then which dimm on channel one will be utilised for duel channel? is it dimm slot one or dimm slot 2?
 
The_Jizzler said:
wait a minute. thats not right. duel cahnnel utilizes BOTH a channel 1 slot and a channel 2 slot. since channel one has two dimm slots and cahnnel 2 only has one dimm slot, then you need a mathced pair of ram sticks ,1 in a channel one dimm(dimm slots one and two), and one in the cahnnel 2 dimm(dimm slot 3 only). then your other 512 stick goes into the other channel one slot.
my question is if all 3 dimms are filled, then which dimm on channel one will be utilised for duel channel? is it dimm slot one or dimm slot 2?

No, my understanding is that 2 slots are on channel 1 and 1 slot is on channel 2. So each channel will utilize whatever ram is installed on that channel. It might be better (more efficient) to 'balance' the 2 channels, but AFAIK there is no requirement that each channel have the same RAM (either the same number of sticks or the same total capacity). So, if you have 2 sticks of 256MB on one channel and 1 stick of 512MB on the other, then each channel has 512MB and will be utilized as such.
 
that's not what we are wondering about though;
My understanding of how Dual-Channel works is that it takes two 64-bit DIMMs and basically does a RAM version of RAID-0 - viewing the two as a single 128-bit DIMM. The question is HOW IN THE H3LL would using three dimms still be able to satisfy this. Since you have one more than dual channel, would the 2 originals remain 128-bit, and the new one would be a 64-bit channel? or would the system revert to them all being 64-bit channels once the third is installed, since there is one more than needed, and one less than needed.

Because i read somewhere that if you try to populate all 3 dimms that it will be 3 64-bit (Single-Channel) paths, instead of Dual-Channel.
 
The fact that there are two sticks on one channel is irrelvant AFAIK. Each slot is actually 2 banks (each 'side' being a bank). So I assume that it would handle two sticks on one channel the same way as two separate banks are handled. I mean, would it make a difference if you had one double sided stick of 512MB on one channel and two single sided sticks of 256MB on the other channel? Wouldn't that amount to the same thing?
 
as long as both channels have the same total amount ram installed, you get DC ie 2x256 in one channel and 1x512 in the second channel, for a three slot board, see my sig.

Use same brand and speeds of RAM for best results.
 
so if you had 2x512 (slot 1 and 3), you'd be screwed on the dual channel by adding ram to slot 2, because as of yet there are no 1GB modules, and a 1gb module would be needed to balance out in order to get the dual-channel feature- does that make any sense?
 
yeah, but thats pc2700- I am running 2x512mb samsung pc3700 (466mhz). My board A7n8X-DX can run 400ddr, if i drop in 1gb of pc2700 from crucial, there is no way I can overclock my fsb as high as I can with the pc3700. Or am I wrong??
 
hmmm why is your fsb only at 200 sync (100%) ? your Corsair XMS should allow tight timings and high fsb. You might try the vdd mod if your board is holding you back. And why so much memory u actually run somthing that requires that much? I run CAD and really big data files using RAID (seagate 80gigx2) with a maxtor 40gig as my saved backups on my Asus A7N8X Deluxe with 512 megs and trust me thats more than enough. And one other thing there is alot to just running one stick and two (DC) its not all what it seems. 256megs can run very high on the fsb 225 and up stable and 512 well slower get the picture and also your power requirements change the fast and larger sticks make it really hard to remain stable at high fsb. So if your thinking 1gig then expect a lower fsb if you overclock.
 
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jordan said:
yeah, but thats pc2700- I am running 2x512mb samsung pc3700 (466mhz). My board A7n8X-DX can run 400ddr, if i drop in 1gb of pc2700 from crucial, there is no way I can overclock my fsb as high as I can with the pc3700. Or am I wrong??

If you droped pc2700 into your system, your pc3700 will revert to pc2700, so you wont get as higher fsb as you would with your pc3700 due to the limits of the pc2700.

But it wont be long before there will be 1GB modules running at pc3700 speeds.
 
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