Question about dual channel memory.

I recently purchased 2 x 1gb pc5300 667mhz transcend jetram and did some research (i probably should have done some BEFORE I bought this haha), and realized that for what tasks I will be doing such as word processing, watching movies which i do quite frequently, and light gaming I won't really need 2gbs of ram. But my question is should I return both of them and buy 2x512 for dual channel? Or just keep one of the 1gb sticks and return 1 of them? Would there be a noticeable difference in 1x1gb vs 2x512? Also I don't really plan on upgrading in the future.

 

I would keep 1x1gb, since you can than upgrade in the future if you need to. You probably won't notice that big of a speed difference between 2x512 and 1x1gb.

 

So dual channel really isn't worth it?

 

Dual channel is better than single channel. But with 1x1GB you leave your options open to upgrade in the future WITHOUT having to throw out both the 512MB sticks. You'd just need to buy one 1GB stick.
It's more a question of economics, and dual-channel isn't THAT much of a performance benefit.

 

If you can afford both sticks, I would just keep the 2GB.

 

The Core Duo doesn't need the extra bandwidth provided by dual-channel, gains are minimal at best.
I tend to agree that if you already have 2GB, might as well keep it, especially if you're going to upgrade to Vista in the future.

 

This is the only benchmarking article that I've seen on dual-channel memory. I linked to the conclusions page, and it is an AMD system, but it should hold true with Intel's as well.

 

Also if I just used 1x1gb at 667 mhz with a 256 533 mhz would it slow it down? cause i've heard that it goes to the lowest speed of the ram. So would it be better to just leave the 256 out?

 

Yes, it would. If you use 1GB of DDR2-667 and 256MB of DDR2-533 then all the RAM will run at 533Mhz. You'll get better performance from just running the single 1GB stick.

 

No, you can always use extra ram. Do you have a game that shows FPS?
Run game with 1gig stick, then again with the 256 meg stick added. Do you see any BIG difference?

 

Technically true, but you won't always benefit from more RAM.
If you don't use more than 1GB memory, then adding 256MB extra won't help. And if it also lowers the speed of your memory, then it might hurt performance.

Then again, in apps that benefit from more than 1GB memory, it'll probably improve performance. So it's impossible to give a simple answer to the question. Try it, and see what runs best.