Me and Adam were discussing this and he thinks that you can save money and just buy 2 2x2GB Kits which would both be dual channel and they would run at quad channel, while I think that you cannot and need to dish out the extra and buy an 4x2GB set rated for quad channel to actually have a quad channel setup.

What do you guys think/know?

See my understanding is that "Quad Channel" is a marketing gimmick.

Most guys that are getting epic scores in benchmarks are still using 2x1GB aren't they?

Kieran Blenkarne said:


It has nothing to do with the amount of ram, it's whether or not You can achieve quad channel through that method.

Well if you are using 2x2GB then you are only using 2 slots, and 2 = dual, so dual channel.

no, thats not what we mean either.

Ok if one were to use 2 sets of 2x2GBs which are dual channel would they run in Quad Channel or would you need to buy a Quad Channel set to actually run in quad channel (4x2GB)

Those 'sets' are just marketing gimmicks.

You could buy one 2GB stick, then buy the exact same one 3 weeeks later and it would be exactly the same.

so you can run quad channel with 2 dual channel sets?

nope

Sean Costello said:
2 x dual channel is not quad channel. Quad channel is found on Xeon platforms such as the X5000 chipset. I have been told that dual channel on these chipsets are kind of blah in terms of performance and they really open up in quad channel; however, I have yet to see "real-world" performance benefits from dual or quad channel memory so I find it to be mostly hype. Latency means more than bandwidth does in most cases.

Kieran Blenkarne said:
See that's what I thought.

Wrong, you can't buy one stick, and then buy another 3 weeks later and it'll dual up.
You can only buy dual in dual kits. For example, i have the corsair dominator which
i purchased as a dual kit, i then purchased another kit a month later, and whilst
i keep them in the same banks (1st pair i bought in 1 & 3, then the 2nd pair i bought
in 2 & 4), i mixed them up and it then read as 3Gb, and not 4Gb's when before when
they were set up properly they were read as 4Gb's.
All 4 were working, but since they were mixed up, one pair had not become dual,
although it would still work officially, but not in dual mode.

If you buy 1Gb at a time, and not from a dual kit, then they will work in harmony, but
but not in dual. When i say buying 1Gb at a time, i mean it's not part of a dual kit.
To run dual kits, you have to buy them as dual kits.

I suppose if you buy 2xdual kits, then they act as quad? or maybe just the quads
are when you buy quad kits only?

Oh and also the Nvid SLi Ram kits, they are just dual kits. That's all. It's another
marketing ploy. It's amazing how much society falls for those gimmiks. It makes
me laugh loads! The SLi kits will probably catch the eye of a mug with more sense
than momey cos they think this's work better cos it's SLi. It's the same as HD
Gaming. I mean FFS HD gameing has been around since PC montitors have been
around. CRT Television's were always 640x480. It was the standard. But then came
plasmas, and LCD's with higher resolutions, then came the name HD.
It's another marketing gimick, and it's raking in the money BIG!
My mate was round at mine the other night and mentioned how he'd played
Jericho on his mates PS3 in "cough" HD! I was like what you on about? You been
playing games on your puter for years in HD.

Yeah the SLI and Crossfire memory kits are a marketing ploy, there's no disagreement between HWA members on that I'm pretty certain.

But we still haven't came to a conclusion on thiese quad channel and dual channel kits yet.

so this kind of thing is just anotehr marketing ploy:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227169
I almost fell for it!

well what my memory needs for example??
i have a 2 gig dual channel set Corsair XMS2 cl5... would i be able to run my ram in dual channel if i bought the same exact set from my local store? i feel a little confused...
im planning on getting an extra 2 gigs soon...

If you bought a dual kit before, and buy another it will work in dual for both kits.
But if you mix them up, then they won't work in dual

There is no need for 8 gigs of ram on a PC.In windows xp pro 64 i was using 4 gigs and i saw really no differnce compared to 2 gigs.Actually the computer was more responsive with 2 gigs.

Wrong. I have purchased memory before 1 Gb at a time and run it in dual channel.

I purchased my old computer and got one stick of 1GB DDR for it, then like 5 months later I purchased another stick of the same ram and ran it in dual channel.....of course it works.

Also did this with a friends PC running 2x512 a couple years ago.

You do not have to buy a dual channel kit.

Kieran Blenkarne said:
True.