[pc hardware gurus] 4x512MB vs 2x1GB RAM

M

Misery_Machine

Veteran XV
I'm planning on building an AMD based system with nForce4 chipset (dual-channel memory support). I want 2GB RAM and have wondered if there is any benefit to using 4x512MB sticks rather than 2x1GB sticks. Please advise. Thanks.

- MM
 
you want multiple sticks of ram as it gives multiple 'pipes' for data to go through instead of bottlenecking trying to get into just one strip.
 
JuggerNaught said:
you want multiple sticks of ram as it gives multiple 'pipes' for data to go through instead of bottlenecking trying to get into just one strip.
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:lol:
 
JuggerNaught said:
No. That's what I've always been told and it makes sense. If i have 4 512 sticks of ram, instead of 1 2 gig stick of ram, then i have multiple ram strips that the data can access rather than trying to all go into one strip.

make sense to me anyway.
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Things that 'make sense' to you... :shrug:
 
Is there a big price difference? And do you ever plan on upgrading your ram? If you don't plan on upgrading later, buy the 4 sticks if they are alot cheaper. Otherwise get the 2 sticks. It will give you room to upgrade later. Plus I've never seen a difference in performance that was noticable for using multiple sticks of ram versus only two.
 
This heavily depends on which core your Athlon64 is.....

If it is NOT a venice or san deigo core, go with 2x1GB, as the memory controller on previous ones cannot handle 4 sticks running tight timings even on 2T mode

If it is a venice or san deigo, then you can run 4x512, but you will be restricted to running in 2T
 
I was planning on going with 2x1GB, but i recently read some hardware reviews where the test set up was with 4x512, so that just made me wonder.

Thanks, all.

- MM
 
JuggerNaught said:
No. That's what I've always been told and it makes sense. If i have 4 512 sticks of ram, instead of 1 2 gig stick of ram, then i have multiple ram strips that the data can access rather than trying to all go into one strip.

make sense to me anyway.
Click to expand...
AIDS water made sense to you too, so that's not saying much.


4 sticks will probably slow down to 2T timings or 333MHz on an A64 system, and it doesn't let you upgrade. Go with 2 sticks.
 
4x512 can be faster, especially if you overclock. Since they can run at much lower timings. However, as the link I dropped said, and stated by Savage, it depends very much on your CPU. With the wrong CPU, 4x512 drops your speeds down to DDR333, and not DDD400. At a pretty large cost of performance.

I went with 4x512 at first, but had some issues getting all 4 sticks to work together. So have many others. Yet some have no problems. 2x1gig is easier, leave room to upgrade, and isnt all that much slower in real world testing. 2x1gig will likely be a little more $$, but not much. I would go 2x1gig personally.
 
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Emilee said:
4x512 can be faster, especially if you overclock. Since they can run at much lower timings. However, as the link I dropped said, and stated by Savage, it depends very much on your CPU. With the wrong CPU, 4x512 drops your speeds down to DDR333, and not DDD400. At a pretty large cost of performance.
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I noticed this when I put my sister's new PC together. I had to manually set it to DDR400 in the BIOS and everything seems to be running fine... but should I reset it to DDR333? I don't want to break her new comp or anything :)

I've been out of the hardware loop for a couple years now :shrug:
 
·liquid· said:
I noticed this when I put my sister's new PC together. I had to manually set it to DDR400 in the BIOS and everything seems to be running fine... but should I reset it to DDR333? I don't want to break her new comp or anything :)

I've been out of the hardware loop for a couple years now :shrug:
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Is it prime stable?
 
2x1gb

I think if you run 4 sticks the speed is slowed down?
Like running 4 ddr400's run at ddr333 or something?

am i rite tw

edit: shit i should read the thread, em already said this :p
 
ok I just did some googling and found out that the new venice cores can do 4x512 @ DDR400.. it just bumps the timing to 2T

she has an asus A8N-SLI w/ a 3500 venice E6 so everything should be ok. I'll run some stress tests next time I go visit.
 
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