Dual Ch = Sorta half the memory?

[marc999]

I got the impression, somewhere, that if you are running dual channel, you only really have the capacity of one of the sticks. So if you're running 2 x 512 MB sticks, you only have 512 MB of usable RAM (even though Windows shows 1000 MB of RAM under System). Maybe this would be because one stick is functioning as upload and one as download, as I've seen some MOBO manufactures label their DIMM slots for dual channel boards. Anyway, can someone tell me if this is how it works or not?

Thanks.

 

[Tebore]

That is clearly how dual channel doesn't work. If you have 2x512 you will still able to use a full gig of ram. Think RAID 0 for RAM.

 

[DanIdentity]

Dual channel simply means the RAM can move data on the rising and falling edges of a clock cycle. Effectively twice the bandwidth.

You still would have 1GB of usable RAM in your example.

 

[Tebore]

Dual channel simply means the RAM can move data on the rising and falling edges of a clock cycle. Effectively twice the bandwidth.

You still would have 1GB of usable RAM in your example.

Actually you just discribe how DDR works, not how dual channel works.

 

[marc999]

Thanks Tebore for straightenning everything out. Like I said, I have no idea where I got that idea, but it looks like I am wrong. But this is one of those instances where it's good to be wrong, becuase that means we don't end up with half our RAM sticks "unusable" in we have a dual channel system!!

 

[Reefa_Madness]

"RAID 0 for Ram", I like that, now...what's RAID???


jk

 

[Hardin]

This link should explain what Dual channel is.