3gb or 2gb RAM????

I have just installed 3 x 1gb strips of pc3200 DDR400mhz Corsair VS.
I have been told that 2gb is actually FASTER than 3gb ???

Can anyone Explain this to me please guys..

xray

 

its all to do with dual-channel. basically dual-channel allows the RAM to have double the normal bandwidth thus allowing faster data transfer. because u have 3x 1gb sticks the dual-channel wont apply. dual channel only works with two RAM sticks.

 

Prankz is correct, and running in dual channel mode does provide slightly better performance but the difference is minimal and you would be hard pressed to notice it in most applications.

At the moment, 2 GB of RAM is more than sufficient to run even the most demanding games and video editing programs if using them with windows xp.

Windows Vista on the other hand will definitely benefit by having 3 BG since Microsoft choose to produce a resource hog like Vista. (no surprise)

You can always just use two of the modules and run them in dual channel mode for now and add the third one in when it's needed.

Keep in mind that the memory modules need to placed in the proper memory slots in order to run in dual channel, so check your motherboard manual to see which slots to use for dual channel mode.

 

Motherboard = Asus A7N8X-X
Chipset = nvidia NFORCE 2 400

My manual does not say which slots to use, any ideas??
How much difference will this make to my performance? I still dont really understand this fully. Sorry guys...

Thanks for the advice so far...

xray

 

It is kind of confusing, lol.

Your motherboard doesn't support dual channel mode so don't worry about it, it's no big deal really.

It's about a 10% or so performance increase running in dual channel mode, you wouldn't notice a huge difference anyway.

Just use all three modules and your good to go.

 

Cheers Estima8tor..
I will be upgrading to core 2 duo within the next 6mths so maybe by then I will know more,. lol..

Thanks to all yet again for there help and wisdom..
till next time...

xray