> > Not only that, I realized something that I didn't know. For dual channel RAM
> to
> > work as intended, you have to match the identical sticks to the identical
> > COLOURS - not the same pair of slots that are physically beside each other. I
> > wondered about it when I upgraded to the Quad. Then I finally remembered to
> do
> > a little research during the holidays. So I reconfigured the RAM yesterday &
> > the Quad seems to be working faster now.
>
> It should have an effect probably more so with an Intel box than an AMD, but not
> as much as they would like you to think.

I opened up my son's computer last night (24 hours or so before this post) to check a noisy fan. His board (which is actually using my old P4 Hyperthreading 3 GHz CPU) also supports dual channel & has 2 different pairs of RAM sticks. I noticed hat it too had the RAM installed with matching pairs side by side. So I swapped the sticks appropriately & now its RAM pairs match the colours. I don't know if you have to change anything in the BIOS for ASUS mobos to "activate" dual channel? Or does it take effect automatically?

Anyway his recent average credit was 362 when I did this. So let's see if it changes much going forward.

> > Now I'm wondering - if you occupy more than 1/2 of the available RAM with
> data,
> > does this reduce the effectiveness of dual channel RAM?
> >
> A good question.
> A lot probably depends on the smartness of the caching algorithm of the
> CPU(s)/Memory Controllers. Unless the box is memory bound under load and forced
> to hit the virtual memory I can't see it making a huge difference.

True but I'll try to find more info on this.

> I have tripled the speed of my AMD K6-2 by going from 128MB of RAM to 256MB.
> ;-D

Wow that box must be just flyyyyyyyyyying now!!! Its RAC must be up to like 20 now!!!

Jay
Hardware/Support Moderator