Which is faster, 4x1GB or 2x2GB?

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Doe
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J

John Doe

Talking about RAM. Which is faster, four 1 GB modules or two 2 GB
modules? Generally and typically speaking. Thanks.
 
I've tested that several times ... and always came to the
same conclusion ... "none of the above".

I've put mixes of vendors and sizes in random orders
in both Intel and AMD machines, and then run bench
marks like Aquamark, and the different ram configs
never made the slightest bit of difference, as long as
the ram speeds were the same. I think other factors
bottleneck this ram speed / config advantage. I'm
guessing that bottleneck is caused by nearly
everything on a PC is running off the hard drive
with no optimizing of ram at all. Reason I think that
is this new SuperFetch thing in Vista where Vista
is trying to use ram cache to its max ... but the
implementation is poor. Even Vista is pretty stupid
about optimizing what actually gets pre-loaded to
ram, so the hard drive still dominates the hardware.
What we need, plain and simple, is 10 gigs of ram.

johns
 
John said:
Talking about RAM. Which is faster, four 1 GB modules or two 2 GB
modules? Generally and typically speaking. Thanks.
Click to expand...

The bottom line is:

Two sticks are easier to troubleshoot than four if there are problems.
 
Kenny said:
The bottom line is:

Two sticks are easier to troubleshoot than four if there are problems.
Click to expand...

Many motherbordl cannot run 4 RAM modules at full speed.

Mike.
 
John Doe said:
Talking about RAM. Which is faster, four 1 GB modules or two 2 GB
modules? Generally and typically speaking. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I doubt that you could find much, if any, speed differences. What I would
look at is........ How cabable is your MB at running 4 modules and what
would you rather have if you have memory problems, 2 or 4 sticks of ram?
Personally, I would go with the 2 sticks of 2gigs myself just to keep it
more simple.


Ed
 
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