1 or 2 SODIMM & bluetooth question

I noticed that u can't get bluetooth with the Asus s96j. What exactly do u need bluetooth for?
Also, some configurations give option of 1 or 2 SODIMM memory. Which is preferable and why.

 

The BT unit for the s96j doesn't exist, well it does, but the work to install it is not worth it. The Z96j is a future unit(weeks to come?), exact same, but with built in BT and a larger WSXGA+ screen. BT is pretty much, wireless USB, and compatiable with BT mice, BT keyboard, cell phones, PDA, etc.

As for the memory, usually there are 2 slots, so it depends how much ram you want in there, and how much memory per stick.

 

Cori covered your bluetooth question pretty well, so I'll move onto the 1 vs. 2 DIMM question.

For current notebooks you preferably want both slots filled so you can utilise a dual channel RAM configuration, which increases memory bandwidth and performance. Dual channel requires that you have matching DIMMs... that is same speed, same size and same RAM timings.

The reason some vendors offer a choice of say 1GB as either 1x1GB or 2x512MB is if you're planning on upgrading to 2GB immediately. It's usually cheaper to buy the extra RAM yourself, rather than have the vendor supply it. With the 1x1GB you only need to buy an extra 1GB stick, otherwise you have to buy 2x1GB sticks and try and sell your unneeded 512MB sticks.

 

Well, you would think that I would do complete and thorough research before blasting bad information here...but I have and now I would like to clear it up as a result of further research.

I have now done further research and, if I have any credibility left, here is what I have found. Some of this is in Intel's NDA material so I cannot quote it as a source, but I have taken it up with the senior engineer at Sager, and others (including the **cough** DELL website), and this is the result:

Beginning with the Intel 915 Mobile chipset Intel has changed the way the memory is used (prior to this chipset, DUAL CHANNEL Memory had little impact on performance). Now however, with the Intel 915 Mobile chipset family and beyond, when in DUAL CHANNEL Memory mode a new channel is opened up (like opening a 2 lane highway to a 4 lane highway) so that you can read and write at the same time (two going one way and two going the other), and carry twice as many “truck loads” of data. Benchmarking software will measure it as 15-20% more productive. However Benchmarking software only uses about 20% of its testing taxing the memory, so if the application you are using is memory intense you will get even more productivity (around 20 to 30%) out of DUAL CHANNEL Memory.

The “speed” of the memory is still 533MHz or 667MHz, but you can have twice as many "trucks" moving your data, so it will be considerably faster (maybe not twice as fast because they only have one lane each way to exit, but you still have twice as many trucks in motion)

Now, with the new Mobile Core Duo (and then the newer Core 2 Duo when it comes out) it becomes even more important to use DUAL CHANNEL Memory because each core uses memory, so if you have two cores trying to read or write to a single channel of memory it will slow the whole system down.

The memory only has to match in that it is DDR2, but can be of any size (e.g. 512MB and 1,024MB will work fine together). If you have 533MHz in one stick and 667MHz in the other stick your speed will be limited to 533MHz, but you will still have the extra channel opened.

Again, I apologize for previous information that I provided that was inaccurate, but there is very little published on this subject that is outside of Intel NDA documents. However you can now rest assured that what I have provided here is not only accurate theoretically, but has also been tested thoroughly by Sager to verify its accuracy.