2gb ddr2 vs 3gb ddr2 (both 667mhz)

Is there much performance difference between the two when running vista premium 32bit?
Its for a dell XPS m1530

 

3GB RAM has slightly lower memory bandwidth, as discussed in the dual channel RAM guide, but overall Vista will feel faster with 3GB since it will use any spare RAM to cache files which it thinks you will be wanting to use.

John

 

The 3gb will be better and make for smoother computing even tho it loses the full dual channel.

 

Don't upgrade through DeLL too expensive. So get 2GB and see what you think.

 

everyday performance will be almost the same, you probably wont even notice. You really have to try to peg the system with alot of memory usage or play certain types of games to use 3gb.

 

Just curious, how are you going to get the 3gb?

 

Well if my 1st grade math serves me well, it's going to be something like this:

1 + 2 = 3

 

haha, classic! Simple math, but that's exactly it.

 

You did well, you get a gold star but remember to raise your hand before answering. The question was for the OP

The reason I ask is, do any of know for sure if that MOBO will run assymetrical dual channel with 2 unmatched modules or, will it revert to single channel? Or, will it run it 1gb + 1gb dual channel and drop 1gb due to the unmatched modules?

 

So does 2+1=3 or 4-1=3. You know what he was thinking! So to answer the next question, No they don't have to match.

 

I think PM965 chipset but regardless yes all 965's support it.

 

1gb of ram will not magically dissapear just cuz there's no dual channel. At the worst only 2gb will run in DC and the rest in single, or it will just run in assymetrical dual channel.

Either way, more ram in those situations is better than 2gb of ram in DC.

 

I personally upgraded from 2gb to 3gb without a reformat or anything. I notice a significant decrease in idle hard drive access.

Also of note, my system uses a higher % of ram with 3gb. 2gb it hovered around 50% -> 1gb ram used 1gb free, at 3gb it sits around 65% used -> 2gb ram used 1gb free.

Its not a huge OMG my pc is blazzin now. But you will notice it when having a ton of programs open. Typically i have visio, few word docs, wmp, aim, mozilla with 5+tabs, outlook, and a virtual pc. Multitasking is smoother with the 3gb with all those open.

 

i heard that 3gb can work in dual channel. the gateway gaming laptop on bestbuy is 3gb stock and works in dual channel

 

My dell shows in cpu-z that it is dual channel. I'm pretty sure its 2gb dual channel 1gb single channel.

 

Intel says yes, they call "Flex Memory". And yes it is a form of "Dual Channel" because it does make use of a 128 bit bus (2X64) and that is what "Dual" means. How it ends up working is what ever amount of RAM can match up between the two sticks runs at 128 bit (dual) and what ever does not match is forced to run in single channel (64 bit). It is also called asymmetric Dual Channel or asymmetric RAM array. Here is my link on Dual Channel.

Edit: Is a sticky in main hardware sticky some people suggest reading those but hey, to each his own.

 

thanks for the clear up highly useful

 

I cannot remember the system or chipset involved but, I have seen users in the past post that they have mixed 2 different sizes of modules in a system and lost some memory in doing so. The examples are mixing a 512mb module and 1 gb module and the system only "sees" 512mb on each channel and thus is dropping the 1/2 of the larger density module in doing so. I have seen it with 1gb and 2gb also. However, I cannot remember if it was an Intel chipset. I would suspect it was another brand. And, laptop bios' are notoriously thin so we can't simply assume that this mixture would work without knowing a few specifics.

 

On Intel chipsets that support it I think we can unless known issues with a certain notebook model. The Intel chipset documentation clearly lists this as a feature on most current chipsets. So many are running 3GB without issue. AMD, yea I would be careful, I have looked and looked and documentation is poor.