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Author Topic: A Possibly Stupid Question About Ram  (Read 102 times)

BillaBoz

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A Possibly Stupid Question About Ram
« on: August 17, 2004, 07:05:00 AM »
depends entirely on the speed of the ram. in general i'd go with the 512 just for convience but thats assuming they were the same speed.
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mcmikemc

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A Possibly Stupid Question About Ram
« Reply #1 on: August 17, 2004, 09:25:00 AM »
QUOTE (NanoStudios @ Aug 17 2004, 10:58 AM)
If I had the choice of putting two 256 MB sticks or one 512 MB sticks in a computer, would either choice have an advantage over the other (apart from slot-space)?

Spec out your rig you are thinking of putting it into and tell us what you plan on doing with it. Then we can help.
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Joshis1

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A Possibly Stupid Question About Ram
« Reply #2 on: August 17, 2004, 03:44:00 PM »
alot of people like the 2x256 if your mobo has a Dual Channel function (i think thats what its called)
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AnThRaX

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A Possibly Stupid Question About Ram
« Reply #3 on: August 17, 2004, 05:17:00 PM »
If your mobo and the ram support dual channel then go with the 256 x2 of course I would upgrade to 1gig like 512 x2 or 256 x4.
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lebriznon

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A Possibly Stupid Question About Ram
« Reply #4 on: August 17, 2004, 05:31:00 PM »
if the mobo has dual channel support, then get two IDENTICAL sticks, and put one in each of the appropriate slots.  If not, then it makes no difference how many sticks you have. a single large one would be somewhat better, as it leaves room for adding more in the future, but other than that, no difference.
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67thRaptorBull

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A Possibly Stupid Question About Ram
« Reply #5 on: August 17, 2004, 07:41:00 PM »
QUOTE (AnThRaX @ Aug 17 2004, 07:20 PM)
If your mobo and the ram support dual channel then go with the 256 x2 of course I would upgrade to 1gig like 512 x2 or 256 x4.

4 slots?

thats rare (or im cheap)
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Mike_657

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A Possibly Stupid Question About Ram
« Reply #6 on: August 17, 2004, 08:17:00 PM »
QUOTE (67thRaptorBull @ Aug 18 2004, 03:44 AM)
4 slots?

thats rare (or im cheap)

my asus p4p800 has 4 slots
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lebriznon

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A Possibly Stupid Question About Ram
« Reply #7 on: August 17, 2004, 09:29:00 PM »
QUOTE (Mike_657 @ Aug 17 2004, 08:20 PM)
my asus p4p800 has 4 slots

heh. mine too. (same mobo  wink.gif )
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mcmikemc

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A Possibly Stupid Question About Ram
« Reply #8 on: August 17, 2004, 09:42:00 PM »
QUOTE (67thRaptorBull @ Aug 18 2004, 03:44 AM)
4 slots?

thats rare (or im cheap)

Or you use AMD MBs.
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67thRaptorBull

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A Possibly Stupid Question About Ram
« Reply #9 on: August 18, 2004, 07:04:00 AM »
sad.gif
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mcmikemc

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A Possibly Stupid Question About Ram
« Reply #10 on: August 18, 2004, 08:30:00 AM »
QUOTE (NanoStudios @ Aug 18 2004, 09:12 AM)
That's what I'll probably be doing, but I was interested in finding out if it makes a difference whether the RAM is spread across multiple sticks or only on one.

Thanks to everyone who replied!

Theorically it should not matter, but the reality of it is that it does matter some what. There are issues that can pop up when using all the banks at once. These can range from memory corruption to the PC not posting. These tend to be either a BIOS issue or a power issue.

There is also a slight performance loss when you start to increase the number of sticks past 2 for DDR and 1 for signal channel memory. Most of the time it is not larger than 1-2% performance loss but it is still a lose.

Performance wise the best thing is to buy the fewest sticks possible for the amount of RAM you want. If money is the only issue then I would determine the amount I want and find the cheapest combo I can.
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