g.skill 8 gig vs g.skill 8 gig....um.. what?

Not sure if this is a noob question or not. Ive looked over both specs, put them side by side and for the life of me i cannot figure out what the difference is aside from how it looks and the price...wtf? why do manufactures do this?

Compairson Link

G.SKill Ripjaws 8gig vs. G.Skill Ripjaws X 8gig

The only difference i can even see is the extra "2N" on the timing specs, which ive not researched what that means.

Also, as far as dual channel go, ive been out of the loop for a while.. Do current mother boards actually keep the dual channel if you fill all the memory slots? My VERY old dual channel board (an old single core system) did have dual channel, but it had 3 slots, and if you put memory in the 3rd, it turned the dual channel off. If they keep the dual channel, would it then be better (likely not even noticeable?) if you spread the memory out between all 4 slots or keep it with just two?

I can easily spot two clear differences:
1. Different heatspreaders.
2. One of the kits is out of stock at Newegg.

In this case, that appears to be it. They could use different memory chips.

As far as your question about dual channel, use 2 or 4 sticks

And the 2n (or 2t) refers to the command rate (CR). 1n is faster, but may cause stability issues. Use 2n if you've got 4 DIMMs.

i was doing the same comparison with the same memory.....funny... I said let me goto overclockers to find out the difference and what do you know!!! the only difference between them besides what sno.icn said is one is Ripjaws X Series($29.99) and the other is Ripjaws Series ($43.99) Both have the same timings and speed. Other than the X series being XMP certified I can see no difference.I think I'll got with the less exspensive ones.

The X is designed for SB. The non-X is not, and may or may not work well with SB.

Would the X work in a non SB board like the lga 775?

Should work just fine, yeah.

thanks Bobnova...time to add some ram!
just bought 8gb for $30..can't go wrong there

That's an insane price, really!

Yea NEWEGG has them I just order them
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428 Free shipping to !

So I got this ram so I might be able to get a better oc (see above) and installed them, first one stick and it booted fine then the other stick and to my surprise in booted right to windows no problem.Ok so I go to the bios and set it to the recommended settings of 999 24 1.5v and all hell breaks loose. They work fine set to my ballistic settings of 888 24 1.65v and booted right up. So I'm back to where I started.With my 4x2gbs installed. Can I set this to 888 24 @1.65v if I get it to boot? Or try and get it to run at the recommended speeds.
I haven't had the opportunity to run stability tests yet.