Tri channel vs dual channel

matchettman

matchettman

matchettman

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27 Oct 2011
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I'm a bit of a newbie so bear with me- are you better getting a tri channel mb or dual channel?...for better performance that is....and is the more memory i.e 24gb, the better or more to do with latency timings?

Or is it just down to the number of dimm slots available on the mb?

Help an newbie and feel good for the day lol
 
You're looking at it backwards.

If you say "I want triple channel" or "I want dual channel" you're making a decision on what platform to buy or exclude based solely on that.

What you should do is decide which platform you want and buy the appropriate RAM.

The best performing platform at the moment is Intel's Sandy Bridge which utilises dual channel RAM.

The only platform using triple channel RAM is based on Intel's X58 chipset and that's not really the way to go currently.
 
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Cool thanks for the reply, for arguments sake if you have a top end sb system with dual channel and say a top end 1133 based system which would give better memory performance? Or are there too many variables with other components to say one way or the other?

Thanks
 
Triple channel is better than dual channel, but at the moment there is no significant gains for going for a triple channel set. The current best CPU, Sandy Bridge, uses dual channel memory controller. Sandy Bridge E will use a quad channel controller. It's the controller which determines if the RAM runs in single/dual/triple/quad/etc channel, and if you have the right amount of RAM modules.

Active programs are stored on the RAM, so you only need loads if you use software which uses a lot of RAM. 4gb is more than enough for gaming, 8gb is good enough things like video rendering, anymore and you're entering server needs. Having more RAM when you don't need it will do nothing performance wise. Although 4gb is more than enough for a normal consumer, the price for an 8gb kit makes it the the best deal at the moment.

Speed and timings is what affects the memory performance. The higher the speed, the better it will perform. The lower the timings, the better. But really you won't notice the difference much in real world situations. 1600mhz CAS 9 seems to be the sweet spot so far. I don't really fully understand this bit myself, so you may need to dig deeper into this, but it gets really confusing...
 
matchettman said:
Cool thanks for the reply, for arguments sake if you have a top end sb system with dual channel and say a top end 1133 based system which would give better memory performance? Or are there too many variables with other components to say one way or the other?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I have no idea what a top end 1133 system is.

I'll assume you mean S1366 (X58 chipset).

The S1366 sytstem with RAM in triple channel mode will have a higher memory bandwidth than a S1155 system using the same type of RAM in dual channel mode.

However, the S1155 system, using say an i5-2500K, with have better overall performance compared to an equivalently priced processor on S1366.
 
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Aw yeah sorry i meant 1366 system, and thats cool- starting to understand a bit better now.

I was originally going to build a system based on the x58 with an i7 960 with 12gb triple channel ram, but from the rumours around ivy bridge and 2011 im likely to hold off untill those arrive to get a more future proof/upgradable machine- am i right in thinking the 2011 is the replacement for 1366 and therefore better choice for future upgrades down the line?

Cheers
 
No one knows if the sockets will be used for later processors, even if they do there still is the BIOS support that will need to sorted, so nothing CPU support wise is fully future proof.

Really the best one to look out for is Ivy Bridge. Intel is aiming it to perform better per clock compared to Sandy Bridge and lower power consumption. In the Tom's Hardware preview SB-E pretty much performs the same per clock compared to SB. All it has is more cores and higher stock speeds (pointless when overclocking). The extra cores will only come in handy for things like video encoding, 3D modelling, VM, servers, etc. For gaming it will have no difference as most games will only use up to four cores.

So if you're only gaming with a single/two graphics card, wait for Ivy Bridge. If you do a lot of video encoding or anything else that can take advantage of multiple cores, or a three/four graphics card setup, then the extra PCI-E lanes Sandy Bridge E offers will be the best for you. All depends on your PC use.
 
No problemo- i can wait untill march/april to start the build so i can wait.

I'll just oder the parts i know wont need to change :-) ...hopefully...am i safe buying these parts and leaving the cpu, mb and graphics until march/april..?

Corsair 800d obsidian case (pre water-cooled by overclockers)
Ocz zx modular 1000w psu
Corsair 128gb ssd + 1tb seagate hdd
 
You certainly don't want to be buying a HDD now.

1TB HDD's are £100 and a few days ago they were less than half that.

Hopefully by March/April supplies will be back to normal and prices more reasonable.
 
Ahha good point, any buying advice would be much appreciated as im new to this whole thing, all i know is that amazo.co.uk used to be ok for parts now ive a whole heap of sites but no solid one for prices other than overclockers of course lol

Exciting times, enjoying the research so far- my plan was to buy all the cheaper parts that werent going to change in one order and then buy the expensive parts as and when i can aford them maybe over 4 months or so but i know what you mean about prices changing so may go down the financeroute for the dear stuff...what you rekon?
 
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