Get more ram, or keep my dual channel?

[GEN_Stone]

Well... a bit of a problem. At the moment I am running 1 gig (2x512) of pc3200 ddr in a dual channel setup. But, being an amd user, my board only has 3 ram slots. Now if I even the channels I can keep my dual channel, I know this. But.. there is no way I can since the ram I am using does not come in a 1 gig stick :( So, if I put another stick of 512 in here, thus losing my dual channel, do you think that extra 512 would be more beneficial than dual channel, and why?
Thanks :)

[Jon]

If you're system will benefit more from having an extra half-GB of memory in single channel over the 5% performance increase dual-channel gives over it, then go for it.

Personally, I'd say the extra memory will make up for whatever is lost...if your system makes use of it.

[TekXoID]

You can have all three DIMM slots filled and maintain dual channel if you have an nForce2, I know, I have before.
Just make sure the slots closest and farthest from the CPU have the matched DIMM's.

However I see no reason to have over 1GB of ram, in fact, I find 512MB is still handling games like Far Cry and Doom III just fine.

[Quailane]

The only way for you to keep dual channel is to buy a 1 GB stick. I don't really think you should get any more ram. I doubt that it would be better than 1GB in dual channel.

[ziggo0]

I got a Abit NF7-S motherboard with 3x256 all running in dual channel. Once i added my 3rd stick it accualy started to run in dual channel.

[Prot]

To run dual channel with three sticks, the capacity of slots two and three must add up to the capacity of slot one. Here is my setup as an example:

slot 1 has 512mb
slot 2 has 256mb
slot 3 has 256mb

There is a sticky that explains the reasons for this but I will summarize here. Slot 1 (the one located by itself) is on one memory controller. Slots 2 & 3 (the two located close to each other) is on the second memory controller. The capacity of memory on the first memory controller must be the same capacity as the contents of the second memory controller.

From the sticky:

"The nforce2 platform has two 64 bit memory controllers (which are independent of each other) instead of just a single controller like other chipsets. These two controllers are able to access "two channels" of memory simultaneously. The two channels, together, handle memory operations more efficiently than one module by utilizing the bandwidth of two modules (or more) combined. By combining DDR400 (PC3200) with dual memory controllers, the nForce2 could offer up to 6.4 GB/sec of bandwidth in theory."

Also from the sticky:

"If you're using two or more modules of unequal size, you will get the best performance if you put the largest module(s) (in megabytes) in the lowest-numbered slot(s). For example, if your system currently has 256MB of memory and you want to add 512MB, it would be best to put the 512MB module into slot 0 and the 256MB module into slot 1."

Also from the sticky:

"Dual Channel requires at least two modules for operation. It is recommended that the modules you use be of the same size, speed, arrangement etc. Dual Channel is optional on the original nforce2 motherboards and nforce2 ultra400. You can choose to run in single channel mode on these motherboards. Nforce2 400 boards are singe-channel only. Most dual channel capable nforce2 motherboards come with three slots. On these motherboards the first memory controller controls only the first slot (or the slot by itself), while the second memory controller controls the last two slots (which are usually closer together). Name them slots 1, 2 & 3 respectively. To implement Dual Channel, it is necessary to occupy the slot 1 (channel 0) and either one of the two slots that are closer together, slots 2 or 3 (channel 1). The entire config would be running in 128 bit mode.

You can use three modules in Dual Channel Mode, by filling the third unoccupied slot. With three sticks, slots 1 remains as channel 0 while slot 2&3 become channel 1. To maintain 128-bit mode, with all three slots filled, each channel must have an equal amount of memory. For example, slots 1 should be filled with a 512 Mb module, while slots 2 & 3 are populated 256 Mb modules. If you were to use three modules of the same size, then only the first two modules would be running in 128 bit Dual Channel Mode. Example, using 3x 256 Mb modules will have the first 512 Mb running in 128 bit Dual Channel mode, while the remaining 256 Mb will be in 64-bit Single Channel mode."

I would also like to add what are you doing that requires more than 1Gb of memory? If your machine is bogging down when playing a game or editing photos, wouldn't a video card upgrade yield greater results? It just seems like 1Gb of ram is already a lot.

[GEN_Stone]

No my video is fine, a 6800 gt in fact. I was just thinking of buying another gig of memory because I only have 1 machine, but I run two clients of dark age of camelot at the same time. I was hoping that my performance in both clients would be increased by some more ram :)