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Sdram/vcm sdram

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tata4now

Registered
Joined
Jun 4, 2002
Location
Colorado
I have an Asus tuv4x mother board PIII 933 with 1.5gb DIMM sdram. While reading the manual it mention nec vcm memory. Is VCM better?

I am also wondering what the difference between DIMM sdram 133 single bank and sdram 133/100 double bank are? As I seem to have both installed on my computer.

Faith:eh?:
 
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welcome to the forums, tata4now!

VC RAM is Virtual Channel RAM. For a little while, VIA was pusing it as the next best thing over normal SDRAM. It never really got popular, tho.

VCRAM gives you a very small speed boost over SDRAM- like on the order of 10%- and supposedly has lower latency. It also cost almost double what regular SDRAM did.

It was usable only in Pro133 and Pro133A chipset motherboards. I've only seen one review of a VCRAM system, ever, and it wasn't too impressive. Don't know if you can even get VCRAM any more.

As for single/double bank- it has to be single bank. So far only nForce DDR boards use dual channel memory.

You might be thinking of single/double sided RAM, maybe. This refers to the way the RAM itself was manufactured. A 128MB stick could have one set of 4x32 chips on it, or two sets of 4x16 chips. Same result, totally different construction. If you have to pick, pick single-sided.

:edit: hey, you're in CO! right on, enjoying the rain??:D:D
 
Lots of rain and in Colorado!! We needed it tho.

It is weird because I have 2 sticks of 512 DSRAM 3.3v 168 pin DIMM PC133/100 that are showing under the ASUS PC PROBE as a "double bank". One is a PNY and the other is VisionTek, both work fine. I have a third that I am not sure of the maker on but it is also 512 SDRAM DIMM 133 that shows as a "single bank". I origionally thought it was the slots they were in 1&3 making a double bank, but no matter where I put the third stick it shows as a single bank and the other 2 as a double bank. I understand what you are saying. So it really does not make sense that 2 of my sticks are reading as double bank. All the sticks look the same ecept the width is slightly different. They have memory blocks on both sides, 8 on each side. I wonder if it is a error within the ASUS PC Probe??

Thank you for your response.

I see you are also in Colorado!! Wonderful place to live!!
 
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I think in this case, double bank and double sided mean the same thing. Probably just semantics.

It doesn't really matter, anyway. If you were doing some heavy OCing, you would prefer single bank/sided RAM over double, as it is electrically much simpler and tolerates errors and high FSB better. But in a lightly or non-overclocked rig, it won't matter at all. You can build single sided sticks to look identical to double siders, if you want. The difference is in how big the chips are, and how they are wired.

Normally the chips on a single sided stick are only on one side, or are staggered across both sides. Double siders usually are covering both sides of the stick completely. But, they don't have to be!! lol good definition, huh ;)

If you want more info on your RAM than you could ever possibly want, try ctSPD. Will tell you all you need to know, and then some. :)
 
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