My question stems from a few people and the internet.

I am getting a mobo that has dual channel slots for memory. From what I have seen, as long as you have two sticks that are the same, you can pair them up and it works fine. Whether it is dual channel or not does not matter.

Now if this is so, I am sure that if its not, you still wont receive the maximum efficiency as if it were DC.

So does it matter, with a DC mobo, is it able to run any memory as long as its the same type for the two sticks paired together?

1/10/2008 7:55:29 PM

you are undoubtedly buying a new motherboard, which i guarantee requires DDR2 memory...you cannot put PC1xx or DDR in it - they won't fit, anyway (plus, everything except DDR2 is freakin' expensive)

you can get 2gb (2x1gb) for around $30AR...just check http://www.slickdeals.net/ and/or http://www.bensbargains.net/ (i guarantee there are 2 or 3 deals on there right now)

1/10/2008 10:23:06 PM

yes, you can run 1 DIMM of 512MB along side of 1 DIMM of 1GB just fine in any motherboard that supports dual channel, most of the time it will default to single channel but it can do both

1/10/2008 10:28:35 PM

alright, because i do have two sticks of dual channel memory ddr2 sticks, a gig each.

my brother has two gigs of just regular ddr2 that he didnt mean to get and so he was asking if i wanted it, but since hte board is dual channel, did it matter?

anyways, but putting two ddr2 sticks next to two DIMM ddr2 sticks will be fine, no complications or lack of ability

1/10/2008 11:25:09 PM

dual channel kits are no different than single sticks of memory

the benefit though of the dual channel kits are that two sticks of memory are from the same batch and are paired to be perfectly compatible with each other... it doesn't mean that single sticks couldn't do the same thing though, they just might be 1-2% less compatible with each other... in real simplified terms.

1/11/2008 12:40:35 AM

prospero has answered your questions, but just so you know:

To run in dual channel the DIMMS have to be paired correctly. if you have four sockets think of it like
A1 A2 B1 B2 (imagine that as the 4 sockets lined up side-by-side). They are typically color coded, my 1's are yellow and my 2's are blue (the numbers and colors don't really mean anything, it's just a way to easily match them).

So if you have 2 512 sticks and 2 1gb sticks the number has to be paired to one size. So let's say you put a 512 in A1, the stick you put in B1 has to match the A1 stick (512) and the 1gb sticks go into A2 and B2.

So for dual channel with a pair of 512s and a pair of 1gb your memory would be configured as
512 1g 512 1g OR 1g 512 1g 512

If it is 512 512 1g 1g OR 1g 1g 512 512 it will run in single channel.

If you have 4 identical sticks then it doesn't matter, it will run in dual channel.

If you have say 512 1gb 512 256... even though the 512s are set for dual channel everything will run in single channel because of the 1gb being paired with the 256.

How I've explained it above is how my board works. I don't know for sure that all boards are arranged in the A1 A2 B1 B2 order. I guess it could just as easily be A1 B1 A2 B2. And I'm pretty sure the all or nothing deal is with all boards. Meaning you can't run 2 DIMMS in dual channel and 2 DIMMS in single. It's either all dual channel or all single channel.

Could someone confirm this?

By the way, this will all be in the manual for your mobo..

1/11/2008 1:53:25 AM

yea, good point, the slot selection is very important, you will HAVE to read the manual on which slots to put the paired sticks in because each manufacturer does it different, as duro982 pointed out, there are two different ways to do it and the colors don't always mean the same thing. some manufacturers use one color to represent one channel (A&B), some use one color to represent one pair (1&2)

1/11/2008 9:56:31 AM

all i needed to know was whether or not it mattered that the sticks were classified as dual channel or not

so that works

I will have two 1 gig sticks that are dual channel and two 1 gig sticks that are not dual channel

and just so i match them correctly, it will all act as if it were dual channel

1/11/2008 12:05:03 PM

1/11/2008 12:16:53 PM

?

1/11/2008 2:59:37 PM

DUAL RAM

1/11/2008 3:41:11 PM

lol

1/11/2008 5:00:01 PM

haha, nice

1/11/2008 5:16:27 PM