Which is better: 1GB X 2 or 2GB + 1GB ?

B

Bacillus

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 23, 2006
Messages
384
Forgive my ignorance, but from reading other post, it seems that you need two identical sized sticks of RAM to unlock the awesome power which is dual channel. On the other hand, there is the saying, “size matters”, which would seem to favor the 3GB option – but AFAIK, exclude the dual channel of the memory (and go to single channel?)

The computer is an Intel based iMac, and I have 2X 512 in there right now.

Which is better? My uses are primarily encoding videos, having lots of apps open, and using the CS3 suite (Photoshop and Illustrator mostly) when it comes out in a month or so.

I’ve tried to do my homework on this, but I cannot find the answer.

- Thanks
 
Bacillus said:
Forgive my ignorance, but from reading other post, it seems that you need two identical sized sticks of RAM to unlock the awesome power which is dual channel. On the other hand, there is the saying, “size matters”, which would seem to favor the 3GB option – but AFAIK, exclude the dual channel of the memory (and go to single channel?)

The computer is an Intel based iMac, and I have 2X 512 in there right now.

Which is better? My uses are primarily encoding videos, having lots of apps open, and using the CS3 suite (Photoshop and Illustrator mostly) when it comes out in a month or so.

I’ve tried to do my homework on this, but I cannot find the answer.

- Thanks
Click to expand...

If the mobo have 4 slots, the best solution is to get 2x1 Gb then run it along with your 2x 512 Mb to retain the dual channel advantage while getting 3 Gb of RAM ;)
 
If you dont need more than 2GB ram, stick with 2x1GB as you will lose 1/2 the ram bandwidth with 3 ram sticks (as you mentioned).
If you need more than 2GB then 3GB could make things run less slow (by preventing some paging to/from the hard drive) but if you only need a little more than 2GB, the trade off probably isnt worth it.

Be aware that many systems cannot run 3 Ram sticks.
Mine only takes 1,2 or 4 sticks. With 3 sticks in it just beeps.
Dunno about MACs but you might be wise to read up just in case.
 
I forgot to mention it has two SODIMM slots.

If I put a 2GB in the first slot and a 1 GB in the second, would it still be dual channel? I must sound like such a knob – I know the answer is out there on the internet, but I don’t know enough about the subject to ask the right keywords.

Thanks for the replies.
 
Bacillus said:
I forgot to mention it has two SODIMM slots.

If I put a 2GB in the first slot and a 1 GB in the second, would it still be dual channel? I must sound like such a knob – I know the answer is out there on the internet, but I don’t know enough about the subject to ask the right keywords.

Thanks for the replies.
Click to expand...

I don't think so. You are better with 2 identical pairs. 2 Gb and 1 Gb sticks has a different number of banks and I think this will cause it to disable dual channel.
 
I'm running a 1GB stick and a 512MB stick in my laptop right now and CPU-Z says it's in dual channel mode. I'm confused how that can happen though...
 
It's wrong. Dual channel requires pairs of matched dimms since it interleaves memory to speed up throughput. With 2 slots, you should put it 2 X 1GB unless you run apps where total amount of memory available is more important than memory bandwidth.
 
To the OP: Dual Channel accesses the memory faster, while more memory gives you more memory...the trade off can be tricky.

Can anyone attest to which is better for day-to-day operations and gaming?
 
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