With m1530 model with 3GB ram, is there performance hit because of dual channel?

I thought this stuff needed to be run dual channel. How is 3gb running. 1 x 1gb and 1 x 2gb chip? if so does it hurt performance to not have 2 identical chips in there? Would it be better to get 1 more 2gb chip and put it in? where do you buy just a single chip?

 

All I have seen is that dual channel gives you about a 5% performance increase; not enough to worry about. You'll be fine with just 3 GB unless you multi task a lot and have 18 million programs open

 

Dual channel is way over hyped, don't worry about it at all. You'll gain more performance by running 3gb in single channel than 2gb in dual channel. Sticking another 2gb in there won't help since windows will only see 3.5gb, so it couldn't run in dual channel anyway. I'd just stick with the 3gb, should work quite nicely

 

Well is you go 64bit then you will see all 4 gb of memory.....

 

there is no need for more than 2gb ram

 

yeah but with the 1530 deal going on now you have to get either 3 GB or pay an extra $250 for 4GB which is just stupid

 

Don't pay $250 for 4GB of RAM, stick with 3GB. If you want to, RAM is always upgradable later and for much cheaper than what Dell charges. That amount should work quite nicely.

It's not really necessary, but in Vista it certainly wouldn't hurt especially considering that with the deal you can't downgrade to 2gb.

 

I think you might as well upgrade to 4GB right now simply because memory is so cheap right now. As always happens, once another memory becomes standard, the older stuff gets expensive. My Dad likes to buy older computers, so when he finally decided to upgrade from 512MB DDR-400 to 1GB, it cost him $35. You can't get it any cheaper now. But consider that you can get a 2GB stick of laptop memory at 667 megahertz for $30 now, with the inflation over the past year, and this memory is way cheaper.


I'm not sure how long it will last. I don't want to make a prediction which will probably be false, but just remember that DDR2 memory is really cheap right now.

 

If it doesn't work then Dell will not have 3GB ram on the XPS 1530.. they don't like headache too, you know