PC3200 Ram Performance
 

With all other things being equal, which would be a better setup with 1 gig of PC3200?

4 256MB sticks
2 512MB sticks
1 1gig stick

I have the A8N-SLI board, and it supports dual channel memory, but I was just wondering if maybe 4 256 chips would be better than 2 512 sticks or one gig chip. I would still be taking advantage of the dual channel support...

help a brother out. :)

2 512 sticks was recommended to me since it's dual channel on the board.

I did run 1 Gb stick on my P5B recently and I noticed only a small decrease in performance from 2 1 Gb sticks in dual channel.

Old school was 1 stick was better than two, until dual channel came out.

an interesting setup idea of 4 256, but I'd say that's ultimately slower since you'd be swapping things out of memory often.

I remember that with the earlier dual-channel intel chipsets (865), 4 x 256 would be slightly faster than 2 x 512. However, I very much doubt you'd notice the difference, and 2 x 512 would allow you to expand at a later date.

I agree, if you have dual channel then use 2x 512mb sticks, in one of out computers we have 2x mathced pairs of 256mb sticks (4x 256mb) in dual channel slots and it doesnt give as good performance as 1x gb stick or 2x 512mb sticks.

Chris

i'd go with 2x 512. and with vista coming out in a few months its recommended that you trhough in even more RAM than that. so 2x 512 will give you the opportunity to toss in another gig or even 2 gigs