Upgrading to 2 gig: What's the skinny on 2x1gig vs. 4x512k

currently i'm using 1 gig (2x512k) of mushkin XP2-6400 and am thinking of upgrading to 2 gig total.

considering a 2 gigabyte configuration: what would be the performance difference between running 4x512k of this same ram vs. running 2x1gig?

to be honest, i'd like to simply buy another identical dual 512k kit of the very same ram as this is the most cost effective, ... but since max overclocks and benchmark competitions are also a concern, i'd like to know what sort of drawbacks running 4x512k would give me versus running 2x1gig considering such applications.

thanks for any assist.

Generally 2x1gb has been better for overclocks. Plus using 2x1gb sticks leave you room for an upgrade later on.

BUMP

Thread jack kinda, Say you have 2x1gigs of DDR2 800 which runs naturally at 2t, at least mine, then you have 4x512megs of DDR2 800 which will run at 2t as well, is there any drawback like there was with regular DDR?

Yep 2 X 1G sticks is a better way to go. They OC better and like someone said leaves room for upgrades. I had a motherboard that as soon as you filled all 4 DIMMS it would automatically slow the RAM speed down from 400 MHZ to 333!!!!! That being said some motherboards just don't like all 4 DIMM's being full. If you have Win XP 32 Bit you won't even see 4 Gigs if you fill them all with 1G sticks because Win XP can only see a total of 4G of on board memory so if you Video card and whatever else has RAM on it that adds into the maximum allowed 4G Good and Bad news...Vista is out and should address this

The limitation is a limitation of 32 bit. 64 bit XP and 64 bit Vista can address more memory. Back on topic. Some have reported 4 sticks of memory totalling a certain capacity will have slightly more latency than the same capacity on two sticks. I'm not talking about latency in regard to timings set in BIOS. I'm talking more about feeling a bit of lag, not much, but some. Also, it also goes back to the advantage of getting matched sticks when running dual channel. The dual channel "kits" have been tested and have more closely matched characteristics thereby making possible slightly better performance and potentially higher overlclocking. By going with 4 sticks, you aren't going to get a "matched set." In terms of real world performance, the performance decrease of using 4 sticks is negligible and may only show up on benchmarking utilities. I guess it comes down to bragging rights vs. economy.

I haven't tried Vista, so I can't comment about different memory capacity's impact on performance, but I can tell you on 32 bit XP, each memory upgrade nets less real world gain than the last in most applications. For example, there is a substantial performance gain going from 128 to 256. There is also a pretty good gain, but not quite as much from 256 to 512. The gain is less from 512 to 1Gb. Less still from 1 Gb to 2Gb. The sweet spot these days based on current applications for most people with 32 bit XP is 1Gb. Most people consider more than that to be a waste. In other words, the performance gain is logarithmic, not linear. My laptop came with shared video memory and 1Gb of system memory. I upgraded it to 2Gb of system memory, hoping to also help the graphics performance at the same time. I saw a very slight performance gain, but not something to be worth even mentioning.

Section8 said:

Yep 2 X 1G sticks is a better way to go. They OC better and like someone said leaves room for upgrades. I had a motherboard that as soon as you filled all 4 DIMMS it would automatically slow the RAM speed down from 400 MHZ to 333!!!!! That being said some motherboards just don't like all 4 DIMM's being full. If you have Win XP 32 Bit you won't even see 4 Gigs if you fill them all with 1G sticks because Win XP can only see a total of 4G of on board memory so if you Video card and whatever else has RAM on it that adds into the maximum allowed 4G Good and Bad news...Vista is out and should address this

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You are talking about AMD setups, its not the same case with Intel and generally smaller density modules do overclock better than higher density ones.

Leo, I'll let you know in a day or two, lol. I have 4x512 in my right now, and I'm going to try taking out 2 sticks to see if I can't get a little bit better oc on my 4400. And I agree with Section8, my board for one bumps down the speed with all 4 slots filled. I'm not sure how useful my info will be, but for my .02 dollares, I'd go with 2x1gb modules.

Sorry to open this thread up again, I'm in a similar situation with wanting to upgrade my Gaming Rig below, but another factor no one has mentioned apart from the 'feeling' or some lag is the actual timings.

The fastest 2x1GB Modules I can find are the Corsair CMX1024-3500LLPRO timed at 2-3-2-6 (rated at 433Mhz)

My current 2x512MB is rated at 2-2-2-5, if I do manage to track down 2x more of these modules to run 4x512MB modules which would be faster?

a) 4x 512MB 2-2-2-5
b) 2x 1GB 2-3-2-6 ?

I know games like Quake 4 and Battlefield 2 will show improvements just because of the jump from 1GB to 2GB but what about other games that don't need this much RAM? Will I actualy be slowing my system slightly with these looser timings?

I also did wonder if this RAM was run at 400Mhz would I be able to tighten the timings up to 2-2-2-5 (as it is rated to do its latencys at 433Mhz instead of 400Mhz)??