Dual RAM Question

[EasyDelta]

I here people talk about the dual ram thing, where each stick or w/e has say, 512MB.

My question is does it combine the amount together? Like 512+512 or can you only sotre 512 on each? When I say combine I mean use it as one big memory sotrage place instead of two seperate ones.

Whats teh advantages of this?

[System]

Re: Dual RAM Question

dual ram kits is two seperate sticks.

example: 2 GB dual kit is 2x 1GB sticks.

advamtages? I think they run faster or are "configured to run faster togother" and probably are cheaper to buy together than seperately anyways...

[sgt-Sander-NL]

Re: Dual RAM Question

dual kits contain two exactly the same ram sticks which will let you use dual channel as System already said...

[megawhompertoo]

Re: Dual RAM Question

Your pc is capable of using all the ram you put in it up to the limit of the bios and operating system.

"Dual channel" refers to the ability of the cpu to access a pair of sticks of ram set for identical timings as one large "chunk" of data, provided your motherboard supports this feature. Basically, instead of putting data in two "memory boxes" (sticks of ram) and having to sort the data out from the each of those boxes later one at a time, all the data goes into one bigger box, making access somewhat faster because the CPU is "talking" to both sticks at the same time.

Advantage: Doing so significantly increases the theoretic bandwidth and has the potential to increase your epeen in synthetic benchmarks, but gaming apps rarely benefit significantly from dual channel. If you're buying a new setup, go with a dual-channel "kit". If you're just worried your going to take a huge hit by getting another stick (for a good price) that doesn't match, then stop worrying.

See wikipedia for a fairly short and simple explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-channel

See this review for real-world performance differences using a slightly dated setup:

http://www.devhardware.com/c/a/Memory/Dual-Channel/4/

[EasyDelta]

Re: Dual RAM Question

Wow. Thanks lol.