Quick question on dual channel RAM

Hi,
I've been thinking about how much RAM I would like in my next laptop and was wondering about the benefits associated with running dual channel RAM.
1)What sort of performance increase would you get from running say, a 2x1 gb (dual channel) compared to 1x2gb configuration?
2)Having heard how much of a RAM hog Vista is I am quite keen to get >2gb of memory. I've heard that getting 4GB with a 32 bit OS is a waste, as the OS can only address about 3 - 3.5 gb of the RAM. Therefore, would it better to get 2gb running in dual channel mode, or to get a 1x2gb stick and 1x1 gb stick to give a total of three gb, but not in dual channel?
3)Or.....am I just grossly overestimating the importance of a dual channel configuration completely
Thanks for any replies in advance.

 

1)Not much, only like 2-3% in memory intensive applications. Other then that, there will not be any major differences, and definitely not something you can notice/tell by urself. These increases in performance would be seen thru benchmarks.

2)More is always better, so a 3gb in single channel will always be better than 2gb in dual channel.

3)Yes you are, unless you're a huge numbers whore, and care about ur benchmark scores like your IQ or SAT, then don't worry so much about dual channel.

 

Have a look at my test results in another thread.

I did some benchmark tests on another computer with different amounts of RAM and there is no significnat effect once the RAM is above 1GB. The real benefit is smoother multi-tasking with RAM-hungry applications, which benchmarks don't test.

John

 

Thanks for the responses guys

 

Dualchannel RAM may or may not make much of a difference. Today, DDR2 offers so much bandwidth already that there's often little to be gained by using dualchannel RAM. On old systems with DDR (400MHz or lower), it's a very different story though, and dualchannel can make a major difference.