Athlon 3200+ and Dual Channelling

[MikeP]

Bear with me please...

I read somewhere and can't seem to find it anymore, but I read that a 3200+ processor doesn't fully take advantage of the Dual Channelling memory. Something about it can only do 1 process at a time or something else...I can't remember.

Can anyone fill me in please?

Thanks,
Mike

[bigjackusa]

Bare=get naked?
Dual channel memory has nothing to do with running multiple processes but simultaneous reads and writes. Never heard of the 3200 having problems with that. Anyone else?

[MikeP]

I wish I could remember....

It was something like each memory channel can only be read one at a time by the processor, so over all performance will not be increased.

I heard that Athlon64 CPUs and Pentium 4s will take full advantage of it.

Thanks again! Oh and I fixed my spelling error thanks :?

[Yawgm0th]

An Athlon 64 3200 (or any other socket 754 Athlon 64) doesn't take advantage of dual channel. However, Athlon XPs, Pentium 4s, Athlon 64 FXs, and socket 939 Athlon 64s all take advantage of dual channel RAM.

If you have a dual channel RAM configuration, you have two sticks of RAM running at identical speeds and timings (best if the sticks themselves are identical) on two seperate RAM channels. This allows greater memory bandwidth as you can respectively write and read to and from two seperated sticks of RAM at the same time. It's a feature anyone building a new computer should be sure to have, assuming they care much about performance. It's not really necessary on a very low-budget system not intended for any intensive applications, but otherwise it's best to have.

[dr_sharp]

How do athlon xp's benefit from dual channel? The way I understand it, dual channel is simply opening two channels for the ram and processor communication. Ergo, with the athlon xp having a maximum of 400 fsb, it is impossible to take full advantage of two channels due to the processor being incapable of communicating with both channels simulatniously @ 400mhz (assuming you are using pc3200). Dual channel's main incentive is doubling memory bandwidth, but in this case, the processor is already at it's limit. I'm certainly no EE or CO but from what I've read and seen, this is how it works. Yes, athlon xp's are CAPABLE of running dual channel memory, but no they do not benefit from it (unless you are attempting an ultra-400 fsb o/c). I was very curious about this issue as well when I built my computer.

[Yawgm0th]

I really don't feel like explaining it any further. Maybe this will help:

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/nforce2-1vs2channels/

Regardless of how it works, it does work and provide benefit, even when the RAM is the same speed as the processor (in FSB). It will generally mean 2-5% improvement, depending on what you're doing. Considering that it will cost little to nothing more than the single-channel alternative, it's worth getting.

[dr_sharp]

I personally don't consider 2-5% a gain. If you owned a company and said that it looks like a big profit for Q3 and then come out with 2-5% gains I would sell your ass in a heartbeat. Search google for "dual channel vs single channel." You can come to your own conclusion.

This is my logic:

[amd_man2005]

Anything is a gain, Orion. 2-5% is a difference and it does slightly improve gaming performance and benchmarks, so you really need to quit contesting it as it has been proven time in and time out.

Also, what area of Indiana are ya from?

[dr_sharp]

Bear with me please...

I read somewhere and can't seem to find it anymore, but I read that a 3200+ processor doesn't fully take advantage of the Dual Channelling memory. Something about it can only do 1 process at a time or something else...I can't remember.

Can anyone fill me in please?

Thanks,
Mike

In one final attempt to justify his long-fought argument dr_sharp recalls the original question. And in fact it is true that a 3200+ processor "doesn't fully take advantage of the Dual Channelling memory." Dual channel is meant to double the bandwidth and the athlon xp simply cannot do that, end of story. I apologize for fighting a lost cause, when I was researching about 8-10 months ago i found many articles stating that dual channel was pointless for the athlon xp's and i had even found some figures that pointed more toward single channel performance prevailing. While trying to find these same articles to back up my arguement, all I found was 2-3% this 2-3% that... I don't mean to sound arguementative but 2-3% is smaller than the margin of error is, but in fact, I guess the athlon xp does "benefit." I don't want to mislead anyone in their quest for glory and high benchmarking scores, but its always good to have two sides to a story.

amd_man: north vernon

[amd_man2005]

DC doubling performance is simply a theory, just like theoretically going from 32bit to 64bit would double performance, tech just doesn't work that way. The P4, which sees a large difference in SC and DC, doesn't even double performance.