Dual DDR or not dual DDR?

Stephen

At the moment I'm running an Abit NF7-S 2.0 with 2x256MB pc3200 dimms, running in dual ddr. I plan to throw in another 512MB dimm (i'm just too much of a gamer), but then I won't have dual DDR any more. Is the performance boost from having dual DDR worth hanging onto? I know I could just get 2x 512MB dimms and dump the 256's, but my wallet doesn't agree

TacT

The performance difference is very, very little.

tman

aye, just a couple of percent performance boost if you're using an Athlon from what i've heard.
can you choose to run your ram in single channel mode in the bios?
if so you should try benchmarking it in both instances.
the memory bandwidth in SANDRA should do the trick

Stephen

No idea, will have to check it out when i get home. If i can't I can always move one of the sticks to slot2, thus preventing dual DDR from working. If the performance increase is as small as tact says I think I'll go ahead and just slap another 512mb dimm in.

Sir Random

You can add the 512Mb stick and still have Dual DDR.
With 2x256Mb in channel #1 (slots 0,1) and 1x512Mb in channel #2 (slot 2), both channels will have 512Mb so Dual DDR will work, providing the sticks are compatible.

Stephen

Cool. both sticks at the moment are cl 2.5 PC3200 twinmos stuff, so if I buy a 512mb one with the same timings it should work?

Sir Random

Yeah, should be fine.

Lorddrakul

the benefits are pretty low compared to outlay.

I had a single stick of Twinmoss 512Mb CL2 which was replaced with a pair of corsair TwinX PC3200 CL2, and to be honest, only Sandra can measure the differnece and its in single percentage figures.

Effectivley there's nowt there. I had both systems cloked at 220Mhz running 11,3,2 and it was ock stable in both cases but even at these bus speeds, there dual channel benefits were poor.

LD

Col_Loki

XP's and memory performance dont go that well toghter when compared with the AMD64, FX's, P4's. The dual DDR gives roughly 2-5% performance increase which is dreadfull, the FSB capability of most of the boards is bad aswell, and memory effeciency decreases as the FSB gets higher...........

I wouldnt worry wheather Dual DDR is working or not TBH, but it is wise to follow Sir Randoms advise on the setup .

Stephen

I have ordered a 512MB stick of CL2.5 TwinMOS which matches my existing 2x256 sticks. Will let ye know if it works in dual channel or not.

Stephen

Received the RAM today and installed it. Got a heart attack when I booted my PC and it still only counted 512MB, so I reseated it. In the process I had knocked the molex connector out of my CD-RW which is on my SATA controller, which caused the machine to halt when it got to loading the SATA bios. Another heart attack. Opened it up and saw the problem and now she's fine, the 2x256+1x512 are working fine in dual channel mode



Edit: Played Unreal Tournament 2004 last night, the extra ram really makes a difference. No more chugging at the hard disk when starting/exiting the game