6GB on Dual channel Sandybridge?

[dan1903]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-113-GL&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=

Saw that you can get 6GB of Geil ddr3 for only £35.99, however I will be building on the sandybridge platform, which is dual channel. Can you still use 6gb even though it can't run in dual channel? Even if i can't, assuming the price stays the same I think i'll get that kit anyway and keep the 3rd stick as a spare or sell it because its so cheap.

PC will be used mainly for gaming and photography; lightroom, photoshop and the like.

 

[Hagar]

Yes, you can.

 

[LePhuronn]

RAM doesn't come in "channels", that's what the memory controller does.

The reason you get dual and triple channel kits of memory is just to ensure that they're the same sticks from the same batch to make sure there's no compatibility issues. So, you'd be perfectly fine in getting a triple-channel kit and only using 2 sticks.

 

[Reaper 392]

i think im right in saying that if you used all 3 sticks, you would have 4GB in channel 1, and 2GB in channel 2, and it would reduce channel 1 to 2GB so that its even. very happy to be proved wrong here.

however, its cheaper than any 1333Mhz dual channel kit anyway, so you might as well use it

 

[Cycrow]

i think im right in saying that if you used all 3 sticks, you would have 4GB in channel 1, and 2GB in channel 2, and it would reduce channel 1 to 2GB so that its even. very happy to be proved wrong here.

however, its cheaper than any 1333Mhz dual channel kit anyway, so you might as well use it

thats not usually how it works.

usually if u dont have matched channels, it simply runs in single channel mode, but all ram would be available to use.
so u can either get 4gb dual channel mode, or 6gb single channel mode

 

[Hagar]

It depends on the chipset implementation, in this example some would use dual channel up to 2Gb per channel and single channel for the third stick. otherwise it could be 6Gb single channel. In unganged mode you have two independant 64bit channels which can be accessed by multicore processor threads seperately rather than a 128bit ganged dual channel.

Depends on this whether 6Gb capacity possibly single channel is better than 4Gb dual channel for your uses.

 

[ellisbodds]

thats not usually how it works.

usually if u dont have matched channels, it simply runs in single channel mode, but all ram would be available to use.
so u can either get 4gb dual channel mode, or 6gb single channel mode

This, basically.

You can get the 6GB kit and use two of the sticks in dual channel mode, or use all of the 6GB, but you would only have single channel RAM in that case.

 

[EggCustard]

The first two DIMM's will run in synchronous dual channel mode.

The remaining DIMM will simply run in single channel mode.

Always install RAM in identical pairs for best memory performance, even on the latest Intel chipsets, and despite them supporting asynchronous dual channel mode. Doing otherwise will diminish memory bandwidth somewhat.