T7500 MotherBoard and RAM Upgrades

Couple of questions for the techies on this board:

Is the T7500 capable of handing dual channel memory?
I ordered with just one stick of 1GB (its the 5300 memory that LEnovo ships with)

Instead of paying more for less (by ordering another 1GB or 2GB from Lenovo) was thinking about getting 2GB from Crucial or someone else. Cost is about $125 for a 2GB stick of 5300 memory.

With the 32 bit OS max recognized is 3GB.

IF the motherboard is dual channel what kind of performance effect (degredation) shoudl I expect since they are not matching pairs?

What if I went with a 2GB stick of 6400, what would be the impact? Can the board support 6400 memory? Am thinking can eventually dump the 1GB tha came with the machine and get another 1G at 6400.

Does this make sense?

 

The T7500 designates the CPU model, which is a 2.2 ghz core 2 duo processor.

The chipset on the motherboard most likely used is the Santa Rosa (965) chipset.
The chipset can handle dual channel memory.

Yes, having a 2gb and 1gb stick of memory together will disable the dual channel function, but you will not see a noticeable decline in any speed at all.

Adding a stick of 6400 will not affect your performance, because the Santa Rosa chipset caps the memory bus at 667mhz. Only the front side bus runs at 800mhz.

For reference, you can get a 2gb stick of Transcend brand 5300 ddr2 sodimm at Newegg for about 76$ w/ free 1gb usb stick right now (combo deal). The chips used on the memory are Micron (good).

 

Thanks that was helpful. So if I had 3GB total, 2GB of 6400 and 1GB of 6400 the chipset would still be the bottleneck or the notebook memory would run at a faster speed?

Also been reading about the Intel Turbo Memory problems on this board and that Sony and HP decided not to include them in systems because Vista does not support it yet and that adding more sticks of memory would get a better result. Should I still configure ith Intel Turbo Memory?

 

You cannot use anything above 5300/5400 DDR2 end of story. (If you do, it will downclock to those speeds so its pointless)

I advocate strongly against Intel Turbo Memory (ITM) but thats just my opinion. (Despite various benchmarks and testing some advocate for ITM and some do not)

Don't concern yourself with Dual Channel RAM, the performance gain would be marginal at best. (3%~) The latest Intel Processors benefit very little from it.

 

If I do decide to get it and it is not to my liking can I disable the TM or remove it?

 

No, you cannot remove it. (Unless you wish to void your warranty)

 

Turbomemory may eventually become useful, but I it doesnt look like it will happen in the lifetime of this chipset. So in short, don't get turbomemory.

Get a 1gb, and a 2gb stick of PC2-5300/5400 (667mhz) ddr2 sodimm, anything higher will not be useful.