Pairing ddr2 ram. does it make much difference in speed?

Wekslap_2

I have a gigabyte motherboard with only 2 ram slots. I currently have both filled with 2 x 500mb ddr2 800mhz ram. I want to get the best performance possible out of my PC before I have to eventually buy a new PC or motherboard. I have been told that the most my motherboard woulkd recognise anyway is 3 and a half gig even if I put in 4gb. my dilemma is would I be better off putting in 1 x 2gb ram stick in one slot and leaving one free for future expansion, or putting in 2 x 1gb paired in both slots to utilize the the alleged benefits of pairing? also, would I notice much improvement moving from my current setup to 2gb, and indeed would I notice, and would it be worth, me maxing it out to 4gb (ie 3 and half)?. i would apreciate the knowledge of you PC boffins out there!

thankyou

John

elvch01

What alleged benefits in pairing? The only possible benefit would be over an unmatched pair of 1Gbs and not a single 2Gb.

It would be worth opening up Windows Task Manager and finding out how much memorys you are actually using. If significantly less than 2Gb, there will be little/no beneit in 4Gb RAM, but if 1Gb or more, then you would benefit from going to 2Gb. If the cost difference between 1x2Gb & 2x1Gb is small, I woudl always go for 1x2Gb simply to allow room for later upgrade

AHAR

If your motherboard supports it, running matched pairs of memory modules in dual-channel mode offers some improvement in performance but judging by this article it's rather small.

If you run lots of applications at once you'll definitely benefit from increasing the amount of RAM.

RobTang

elvch01 wrote: »

What alleged benefits in pairing? The only possible benefit would be over an unmatched pair of 1Gbs and not a single 2Gb.

It would be worth opening up Windows Task Manager and finding out how much memorys you are actually using. If significantly less than 2Gb, there will be little/no beneit in 4Gb RAM, but if 1Gb or more, then you would benefit from going to 2Gb. If the cost difference between 1x2Gb & 2x1Gb is small, I woudl always go for 1x2Gb simply to allow room for later upgrade

Dual channel in theory allows you to have double the memory bandwidth, any performance gains are very variable on your specific system setup and type of programs you are running.

1 stick of ram will be slowest as your confined to its natual bandwdith (ie 400mhz in this case)

2 mismatched (1gb+2gb) will give you async dual channel, eg you get 800mhz bandwidth over the first 2gb and 400mhz over the remaining 1gb.

2 matched will give you full dual channel over all your memory.

Actual performance gains are probably not user noticable, my personal preference is to always run matched sets.

I reckon checking the number of hard faults your getting is a better indication of wether you need more memory, as windows tends to shift stuff to the virtual ram and keep a reserve free, this is where you'll get your performance gains by adding more ram. (ie it doesn't have to get info off the hdd)