Is 3GB RAM better/worse than 2GB dual channel ?

So I notice that Dell are offering a 3GB RAM option now on several Inspiron models. Does this ( 1x2GB/1x1GB) combo affect the dual-channel performance of running a 2GB matched pair ? Which is better ?

Given that Dell is only offering 32bit Vista on the Inspirons, there isn't much point getting a full 4GB, esp at Dell prices, but I could stretch to 3GB if I knew it wasn't going to run a heap slower than a dual-channel matched 2x1GB pairing.

I could drop the CPU back from 2.2GHz to 2.0Ghz and go 3GB over 2GB ? for about the same price ?

( this is for a 1520/1720.. haven't decided which to get yet)

Thanks...

 

Interesting question. I would love to know the answer to this as well.

Regards,
P

 

Although this doesn't answer your question, if price is the problem, just buy it online. RAM is almost always MUCH cheaper online then from the manufacturer. For instance, often 4 GB of ram is priced at 600-800 when it only costs about 200. Also, upgrading to 2 GB is usually close to how much 4 GB cost online.

 

Im running 1x2gb and 1x512 the performance is much better than 2x512 at least i think xps1330 is capable of asyncronous dual memory access ass long as the clock speed matches

 

Nah... overall price is not my major concern. I have a budget in mind but I can be flexible if the benefit is there. Here in Aust this week Dell have a " free upgrade to 3GB RAM" on some 1520's. I'm mainly wondering if getting 3GB will be faster/slower better/worse than the standard 2GB in dual-channel.

 

okay welll my experience with a toshiba core 2 duo vista ultimate machine

it can with initially 1gb or ram from 2 512mb sticks..

i got a KILLER KILLER KILLER DEAL on 1gb stick from a local office depot (the add was screwed up but they honored the price for me so each 1gb stick was 9.95!!!!!! for kingston ram) anyway... i bought all of them they had which was 7 sticks. 2 for the brother in law's, 2 for sisters, 2 for mine, and i had one left... i took the wifes toshiba and said wtf ill take out a 512 stick and add a 1gb giving her 1.5 gb's

her vista score (i know these are not definitive scores but they are great for a vs type situation) was 3.1 for memory with the 2 512mb sticks.. with 1 512mb stick and 1 1gb stick her score plumited to a dismal 2.0... yep... i removed the 1gb and put the 512 back went right back to 3.1


imo if i had the choice id stay 2gn dual channel and be happy the wife has had no issues running anything i have seen yet with the 2gb installed.

i will now be putting 4gb in the dell when it gets here again i got a pretty great deal so i said what the heck.. but id say its def not needed for everyday use
i then removed the 2 512 sticks and put 2 1gb sticks in and the score went to 3.2

take it for what you will if you are running vista it seems to LOVE dual channel setups.. i would recc staying that way.. i saw the same type of results on all 3 laptops after trying this with all of the three mentions (besides mine i didnt have it yet lol)

 

I guess it probably does get to a point where performance increase of a lot more RAM avail to the OS will outweigh a lesser amount of faster RAM. Even if the greater amount is running slower, or non-dual-channel.

 

My own experience (not on Dell, but same i865 chipset) is that the Sandra memory bandwidth result for 3GB (1 + 2) is around 10% slower than 2GB (1 + 1), but the real life performance feels better with the extra RAM.

John

 

I have a D630 arriving hopefully later today. It has 1 GB in it. I have a 2GB stick arriving I hope same day. I will boot with the 1GB, then install the additional 2GB and post my results. I am really hoping Vista likes 3GB as I do NOT want to pony up for another 2GB stick And lord knows, I would never even try to run Vista on 1GB for any length of time.

Dave

 

That's excellent, interesting and useful info zfactor.

Comparing apples-with-apples is really the best way, just as you've done.

Based on that I think I'll just use one of my save carts from last weeks pricing with 2GB and then upgrade myself down the track if needed to 4GB (2x2GB) and get the 3.5GB avail to 32bit Vista.

 

Hmmm.... so much information. So many helpful folks.

Will be interested to see your results. I'm not ordering for a few days yet ( waiting for some EPP login details from my company). I've not had experience with Vista, so I'm open to new information. Will save a cart with a "free" 3GB build just in case.

Thanks heaps to everyone for the info so far.

 

The stat I've always seen is about 5% difference in speed between dual-channel and single-channel. Obviously that's a lot less than what zfactor's Vista Experience Index said...but that never has been the most accurate benchmark.

I don't know how much RAM you have now, but if you're doing fine with a 1 GB machine now - even if it's close, say using 950 MB, I doubt you'd use 2 GB anytime soon. Of the two I'd go with the 2.2 GHz processor since RAM will be easier (and probably cheaper) to upgrade later if you need it. But neither are necessary upgrades.

 

I'm not at all surprised that the Vista score is better with 1 gb dual-channel than with 1.5 gb single-channel. This is because the wording in the Vista results imply that it's only measuring memory speed, not amount. I wouldn't take this to mean that your computer will perform better with 1 gb dual-channel. In fact, I wouldn't really pay attention to the Vista score.

Generally, for multitasking, more RAM is better than faster RAM. This is because accessing the disk takes about 100 times as long as accessing RAM. So, any opportunity to cache the disk or avoid swapping is a huge win. For certain apps (some games, probably) which only really use a certain amount of RAM anyway, adding more may not do much, and if it reduces the memory bandwidth, then it may make things worse. But for general-purpose multitasking productivity use, I say 3 gb single-channel is certainly better than 2 gb dual-channel.

Edit: Yeah, apparently the Vista score is a straight memory bandwidth test, which just maxes out at different amounts depending on the amount of RAM installed. But as long as your score is under the limit for your amount of RAM, then the amount of RAM doesn't affect the score. It seems to be only in extreme cases that the amount of RAM would affect the score. Check it out: http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/pages/458117.aspx This is kind of a dumb way of doing it IMO, but there you have it.

 

her toshiba was def noticably slower in everyting with the 1.5 from booting to using word.. it was like i doubled the cpu when going back to the 2 1gb sticks...

 

+1, i am just testing my setup right now.

my laptop came with 2x512mb pc5300 ram for 1 gb total, dell dosnt ship 1dimm 1gb with m1330. at that time my vista score for the memory is 4.5

Now i got 1x2gb pc5300 + 1x512mb, my vista ram score is 4.9 and my computer runs much faster. It used to take around 10-15 seconds to load visual studio 2005, now it takes 2-3 seconds. Everything is running significantly faster than before.


i have a feeling dual access only requires 2 stick with the same clockspeed, not necessarily the same capacity.

Im going to try 2x1gb pc5300 this weekend, Ill see if thats superior to 1x2gb+1x512mb

 

Visual Studio 2005 is really a beast! I can believe that a lot of RAM would help. On my 512 mb XP setup, Visual C# Express 2005 takes forever and a half to start up.

I think I read something about some "asynchronous dual-channel" mode or something like that, where if they're different size sticks, you can get some of the benefit of dual-channel, but it's not as fast as regular dual-channel where they're the same size... or something like that.

That should be an interesting test. That's a much smaller difference in amount of RAM than going from 1 gb to 2.5 gb.

 

Here's an article about Dual Channel (an old article but useful info) :

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

 

On the Asus G1S, many users have a 3 GB ram set up since 4GB is useless without the 64 bit OS. Tests have shown that the 3GB ram outscores the 2GB or ram in gaming situations. It might be different in regular tasks but I thought this might be the same as the Dells.

 

As long as you have two memory sticks installed you will have DUAL CHANNEL enabled. The amount of memory that will be used in DC mode depends on the size of the smaller module.
2GB + 1GB = 2GB in DC and 1GB in SC
2GB + 512mb= 1GB in DC and 1.5GB in SC
1GB + 512mb= 1GB in DC and 512MB in SC
etc

 

Anyone have comments on a 2x2GB (4GB total) on WinXP 32-bit configuration?

I have run WinXP64 in the past but run into too many incompatibilities (I might try XP64 again once I get my new Dell Vostro 1700 in a couple weeks, after the Sept. 2 Intel price drop). I know a 64-bit OS is the only way to see all 4GB.

But I'm hoping that really the ultimate situation is to have 4GB that runs in dual channel, despite the fact WinXP32 can't use it all, and I'll have the extra memory if I do go to a 64-bit OS at some point.

If I get the Vostro with 2Gb, then upgrade to 4Gb from Newegg for ~$200 and sell the original 2Gb on Ebay, for a total of an extra ~$150 (and some hassle) I have the ultimate situation.

Thoughts?

 

If you don't mind me asking, what are you going to use for that much RAM?

Especially on a laptop, I can see people who are gamers (who should use a desktop) would have 4 gigs.

If you're the average user, you probably won't notice any difference.

 

More RAM is always better then dual channel. Dual channel only gives a slight performance increase, but no where near as much power as having more ram.

 

I run SQL Server with some 100-million-row tables in my databases, as well as my development environment and other apps simultaneously. My current laptop which is maxed at 1GB is really suffering.

Dell wants $90 (reasonable) to upgrade 2GB->3GB, and $300 (unreasonable) for 2GB->4GB. If 3GB is all I can use for a 32-bit OS anyway, and I am still able to run dual-channel for 2GB of the 3GB memory, then I might as well pay Dell the extra $90.

If XP64 runs most of what I need then 4GB is a no-brainer...or if XP32 won't boot with 4GB (thought I heard that somewhere)...

 

Old thread but villageman (if you are still alive and kicking), do you have any support for this statement and links? I can't find any.

 

ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-channel_architecture

A pair of 1 GiB memory modules in bank 0 and a pair of matched 512 MiB modules in bank 1 would be acceptable for dual-channel operation.

Modules rated at different speeds can be run in dual-channel mode, although the motherboard will then run all memory modules at the speed of the slowest module.

Tom's Hardware found no significant difference between single-channel and dual-channel configurations.

 

Thanks.

Yes but one still has pairs the way you state it. (I've seen the wiki) but for 2 slot notebooks (1GB first slot - 2GB second) I suppose this does not apply. Or maybe it applies more to Intel than AMD.

I've been searching and can't find anyone successfully running Turion mobile (T-50 or the like) with unequal ram size in 2 slots and bragging about it.

Do you have that Tom's link?

 

Are you a database developer or programmmer? I just curious because I have never seen the database that has many rows like you have before. Is it a backend for web application or just for a stand alone program. Well, I just guess that it is the databse that you use on your network for some type of transaction?