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Dual channel ddr ???

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greg32

Registered
Joined
Feb 5, 2003
Location
Australia
What's the story with dual ddr supported chipsets. I have just bought my self a ASUS P4C800 (875 chipset) board and a 2.6c proc. I had in my other board one chip of 512 corsair xms3200 ram. That chip is now in the new board. I want to buy another stick so that I can benefit from the dual channel feature. Is it as simple as that? Do the chips need to be matched or will I get away with just buying another stick of the xms3200? Other than the possibility of one chip outperforming the other one, thus possibly reducing the amount I may be able to o/c the board, will I still get double the bandwith for memory, or does the chipset know they are not matched?

regards Greg
 
No, the chipset could care less if they match or not... Like you said, the weakest stick will limit your OC. For that setup you have, you should look into some 3500 ram... The new OCZ gold 3700 is said to be amazing, reaching 260FSB or DDR 520.
 
They do need to be the same size module. Ideally you would use identical brands and ratings just to be sure they have very similar electrical characteristics because the tolerances are tighter in dual mode.
 
Cool, thats all I wanted to know. I will probably go out tomorrow, and buy two 256mb chips of corsair xms3500.

regards Greg
 
Yep, what TC said. It really does nearly double the bandwidth. When we say "matched" RAM we mean another stick of the same brand and same DDR rating, and same memory size. Get another stick of 512 Corsair XMS3200 and you're good to go or sell that stick and get a couple more that are faster rated.
 
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