DescentBB

Well right now I have 3 GB of ram in my system PC3200, and right now it is running in single channel mode because my two 512 sticks are mismatched, and I was wondering which would be the better combination, drop it down to the 2 GB of ram so I can be doing Dual channel, or stay single channel with 3 GB of ram.

In terms of overall system performance, quantity of memory makes up for quality of memory. Operating in single channel or dual channel should only make a relatively minor difference in some games and other memory intensive tasks.

However if gaming is what you plan on doing, than yes most games aside from a few major resource hogs should still prefer the 2 GB of faster memory to 3 GB of slower.

So if one were to have two matched 512 MB and two matched 1 GB sticks installed at once, would all 3 GB be able to operate in dual-channel mode? I'm going to need to do a RAM upgrade on my system at some point, since it only has 512 MB in there as-is, so I've been wondering what my best option is.

Yep, memory will run in dual channel mode as long as there is another stick of the same capacity in the matching bank. Even if they aren't a \"matched pair\". Meaning two 512 MB sticks, even from different brands can be operated in dual channel mode as long as they are in the appropriate slots.

The \"matched pair\" kits that most memory makers sell is more marketing nonsense than anything, its simply two sticks of memory with the same timing and clock standards. The only thing that really matters to the motherboard to get a pair of memory sticks into dual channel mode is that they be the same capacity. Timings can simply be set to the speed of the slowest one out of the pair and it will work. The only other thing to watch out for is making sure they both work properly at the standard voltages (having one chip that needs 1.5v next to another chip that needs 1.8v could produce undesirable results).

hell they are selling \"Quad Channel\" now

So I am wanting to do my upgrade for my RAM, currently I have this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820146841

And I am wanting to add this

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 2N3K2%2f2G

And I just want to make sure before I place the order, if you can see any possibility of it not going in Dual Channel

my current mobo is this
http://www.machspeed.com/specs/MSNVspecs.pdf

Never mind I just realized the ram i wanted to add was DDR2 instead of DDR1