Maybe a stupid question

[Larkspeed]

With the 3 matching sticks for triple channel does this only apply if you are intel or does it come into force with AMD as well?

I currently have mixed ram in my machine and it's running happy enough

2 x Kingston 4Gb
2 x OCZ 2Gb

For a total of 12Gb

Would I see any performance increase if I ditched the 2 x OCZ and replaced it with a third matching kingston stick?

With the prices of RAM right now this would be the time to do it if it will help.

[Smudger]

Apparently it's an Intel thing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-c...y_architecture

About half way down, under 'Triple Channel Architecture'. Apparently, there's not much benefit...

[Larkspeed]

thanks for that.

I'll save a bit of money and leave well enough alone

[c12038]

AMD is Dual channel and mixing memory like this will put it into single channel

[Larkspeed]

nope sorry I would have to disagree.

the memory is in dual channel mode.

provided both sticks in each bank match then it still goes to dual channel

a quote from the above linked article:

"If the motherboard has two pairs of differently colored DIMM sockets (the colors indicate which bank they belong to, bank 0 or bank 1), then one can place a matched pair of memory modules in bank 0, but a different-capacity pair of modules in bank 1, as long as they are of the same speed. Using this scheme, a pair of 1 GB memory modules in bank 0 and a pair of matched 512 MB modules in bank 1 would be acceptable for dual-channel operation"

And as far as I know it's been that way since the inception of dual channel memory.

[DanceswithUnix]

And as far as I know it's been that way since the inception of dual channel memory.

Almost, but not on an AMD box. Wouldn't surprise me if Intel can do the same.

Traditionally dual channel worked like a single wide memory channel and was very restrictive else it slowed down. These days they run "Unganged", so each channel can act independantly.

This makes the system much less sensitive to memory configuration, though it is still easier to just buy in matched pairs. For example, a pair of 2GB dimms in one channel and a single 4GB dimm in the other channel would these days be treated as a matched system as each channel has 4GB total.

[Useless]

The triple channel memory would only apply to the relevant Intel based systems and if you have an AMD system you wouldn't benefit from the triple channel it would just default to dual + single channel for the 3 sticks.

If your really looking to upgrade your memory just go for another cheap 8GB (4GB x 2) set and replace your 2x 2GB OCZ (assuming your actually using memory intensive programs otherwise over 8GB for most things is overkill)

[HalloweenJack]

as long as your ram is running at teh same speed it`ll be fine - dont worry and enjoy