What is and How to do a duel channel ddr thingy?

[Trickle]

Originally posted by Agent
Why would it be at 50%/50% ?. Its got two memory controllers, so surely it would be 100%/100% as each one is controlling a DIMM of RAM ? (now i dont know for certain, but as controller 1 has DIMMS 1&2 and Controller 2 has DIMMS 3&4, wouldnt it make sence that if only one stick of RAM was used in each of the controllers it would get 100% of its resources as its got no other sticks to deal with ?)

I guess my point is, that with 512/256 you stand more chance that more of the program is stored on once stick of ram, giving the program less chance overall to be operating both controlers simulaniously than you do with a 50/50 split.

[BlackSheep]

Originally posted by Agent
No you wont, its fine without.

Does it matter that one of my XMS3500's is silver and the other one is black? (j/k)

Just installed another DIMM of XMS3500 512MB, so running in dual-ddr mode now at 430FSB @ 2.36GHz (11 x 215) with 6-2-2-2 timings (on air).

worked better than I thought it would - it's very stable (3 hours of UT2k3 last night bares witness to that).

[BlackSheep]

Originally posted by Agent
Trickle - rar is basicly the new windows zip format.
Gimmie 2 mins and ill upload it again in zip

www.winrar.com ... I've been using it for years IMO superior to winzip and is still capable of producing .zip archives (for you n00bs)

[Austin]

The perf gains of Dual Channel DDR (DC-DDR) on SktA is only 5% or so, nice but not worth busting your nuts over. Only the nForce2 can offer Dual Channel DDR for SktA and there are now budget versions which lack it.

It is a good idea to use RAM sticks of the same brand, type, rating and size but not necessarily a requirement. If you use diff RAM sizes (eg 512MB+256MB) then I have heard this impacts the perf gains of DC-DDR, something to do with the inner working matching things up. Another point to consider is that you get 3 RAM slots (still SktA obviously) but you should try to keep the same amount of RAM on each channel. As 2 slots serve 1 channel and the other slot the other you should be able to juggle the RAM around to give you equal amounts on each. However with all 3 slots populated there have been issues reported esp if you plan to run at PC3200 speed (a req with 400FSB CPUs). Problems filling all 3 slots may be very bad news for all those who currently run 2x256MB esp if they bought their nForce2 for 400FSB+PC3200 usage.

So you should be able to use diff RAM types and speeds together but it's certainly better to have them as similar as possible, obviously the slowest stick will dictate perf. It should be fine to mix RAM sizes and have a diff size on one channel to the other BUT it may impact or even disable the perf boost Dual Channel yields. You should be fine filling all 3 slots but you could experience problems esp at PC3200 speed and again Dual Channel may not function optimally or at all if the sizes on each RAM Channel is different. It is likely to depend a little on the precise implementation of each mobo and revision (eg Abit vs Asus etc).