Tri-Channel Ram

paradisiac · 13 Dec 2010 at 16:40

i know AMD use dual channel but would the tri-channel still work at is full potential with an AMD cpu and mobo?

imb4tman · 13 Dec 2010 at 16:45

It's the same memory modules so it will work but not in triple channel.

paradisiac · 13 Dec 2010 at 16:47

so would it run at its optimized performance still then, as in, is it optimized so the 3 sticks talk over a tri-channel setup, so going to a dual channel setup it would read 2 sticks on a channel and 1 on another channel, therefore not running as fast/well as it should?

imb4tman · 13 Dec 2010 at 16:54

paradisiac said:
so would it run at its optimized performance still then, as in, is it optimized so the 3 sticks talk over a tri-channel setup, so going to a dual channel setup it would read 2 sticks on a channel and 1 on another channel, therefore not running as fast/well as it should?

This. You probably wouldn't see much if any improvement over just having two modules. Or you could add one more module and have 4 in dual channel.

DragonQ · 13 Dec 2010 at 16:55

The sticks don't talk to each other, the controller just effectively has 2 or 3 lanes so it can access more than one module at once.

If you use 3 sticks in a dual-channel motherboard, they'll presumably work in dual+single channel mode, which won't be as fast as if you had 4 sticks in dual+dual channel mode. Should be fine though.

paradisiac · 13 Dec 2010 at 16:58

ok kool. thinking of building a new pc, had an i7 but the AM3 seem a lot cheaper and i never used the i7 for anything other than web browsing and watching films and stuff, the occassional game, but sold it to buy a ps3 as i found games on that to be a wider range. but i still have a tri-channel pack of ram at home, so if it will work with an am3 then can just get a reasonable mobo and psu with a cheap cpu and then upgrade that if needed.