New dual core system - Dual Channel Memory Needed?

[yoclick]

Hi,
Upgrading my current system with:

X2 3800 AM2
Asus M2NPV

Now i also need some DDR2 ram. I was wondering if i get 2x512mb sticks will it be signifcantly better than 1x stick of 1GB? Im only going to be using for literally the basics and occasional gaming but nothing serious. The two sticks are more expensive and im not looking to overclock. Just looking for some advice. RAM will be PC5300 crucial.

[kalniel]

Hi. From the CPU point of view, no, it's not needed. I don't know about that specific motherboard though.

[yoclick]

Ok thanks, i was told by a computer store that because i was running a dual core, it really would be beneficial to run dual channel memory?

[sTrAnGeFrUiT!]

2 Matched Pairs of 512MB will run a little bit faster then a 1GB stick

However as far as im aware there is no reason why it wont work with just a 1GB stick

[MadduckUK]

Ok thanks, i was told by a computer store that because i was running a dual core, it really would be beneficial to run dual channel memory?

thats incredibly retarded. there either clueless or they think your clueless



your better off going for SLI / Crossfire, dual monitors and a pair of hard drives for RAID however. because you have a dual core chip

[yoclick]

2 Matched Pairs of 512MB will run a little bit faster then a 1GB stick

I was just wondering if it was significantly faster for my purposes to warrant the extra money and taking up of an extra RAM slot.

The guy in the store I THINK was saying that because its dual core, the memory speed will be split in half as it is, so by dual channeling, the memory will stay at its said speed. If that makes sense?

thats incredibly retarded. there either clueless or they think your clueless

Damn muppets, they looked desperate for a sale (had no single sticks of ram in stock).
Dont think my budget can stretch that far yet for the extra bits haha.

[MadduckUK]

The guy in the store I THINK was saying that because its dual core, the memory speed will be split in half as it is, so by dual channeling, the memory will stay at its said speed. If that makes sense?

as i said. he's either stupid or he's lying in order to sell you something

[kalniel]

The guy in the store I THINK was saying that because its dual core, the memory speed will be split in half as it is, so by dual channeling, the memory will stay at its said speed. If that makes sense?

What he will have been trying to say is, given that you have two cores, if both cores are working on seperate things then each could be requesting data at the same time from the memory. In this situation you've got the same total bandwidth from the memory as when you have one core, but you're sharing it between the two of them, so each core only sees half the bandwidth.

However he didn't point out just how incredibly rare it'll be that you'll either have both cores reading and writing from the RAM at exactly the same time for any length of time, or infact how rare it is that you'll ever by bottlenecked by memory bandwidth.

If just one core is accessing the RAM at any given time, it pretty much sees the full bandwidth.

[yoclick]

Thanks kalniel,

Really informative reply and helps me understand a bit better. I left the computer scene when 64bit just came out so you can imagine, im amazed how far its moved forword!

MadduckUK yup, he must have wanted a sale. Il slap him next time i see him

[MadduckUK]

put it on youtube when you do

[MSIC]

As a rule of thumb these days dual sticks of memory is a better way to go as it gives more theoretical bandwidth for the chips to use (be they single core, dual or quad core). You don't need dual channel BECAUSE it's dual core, that is eroneous, but you could get some measurable benefit non-the-less. Small, but measurable.

I would tend to buy a single stick of 1GB if my intention down the road was to buy a second gig stick, or if there was a large price difference (say, greater than 10%) now between 1 x 1GB and 2 x 512MB. Otherwise i'd buy dual channel now.

The other point is that, in my experience, 4 x 512MB should not be the aim (even though i am running that myself right now) if you have the choice of 2 x 1GB. Some motherboards can be a little, say, twitchy.