256 or 512?

Dooom

at the moment i have 256ddr 2700 ram in my asus a7n8x deluxe nforce2 mobo thingy. however i want more! im thinkin of buyin a stick or 512ddr (2700) but i would like to take advantage of the dual-ddr option that the mobo has. however, will that option only work if you have 2x256 sticks or will it work with 1x256 and 1x512? any help is appreciated

STaN

they have to be the same type of memory, i.e. they have to have the same latency. I would recommend same brand and model, preferable CL2 memory. Also, they both have to be the same size and have to be in the correct 2 slots. (I think their the 2 blue ones).

So you need 2 identicle 256s or 2 identicle 512s

astrofool

doesn't matter if size is different in an nforce machine afaik. It's dual memory support is more advanced than intel and AMD's which is just a 128bit bus split in two, nforce uses a crossbar memory controller like in their graphics cards.

Speed wise, they have to run at the speed of the slower stick.

50Cent

they have to be the same type of memory

do they? On my board it says i can have a mixture of ddr memory. its a msi 648 max. It apparently can support 400mhz ram. But i can get 333mhz ram and mix it if i want...ive done that b4...

ozt9vdujny3srf

As it stands, i can't see the point on having any more than 512 mb's of ram, you will rarely use that much , even on windows xp.

Boston

Originally posted by Truckle
As it stands, i can't see the point on having any more than 512 mb's of ram, you will rarely use that much , even on windows xp.

Why is there allways one for you people, for you there maybe no point but for him there might be. are you sure it isn't just overclocking/or underclocking your ram? besides that wasn't what stan was talking about, he was talkign about lag, (as far as i can see) i.e. cl2 or cl2.5

STaN

With this particular board... it has 2 memory controllers.

If you have 400Mhz ram, and you get 2 IDENTICLE modules, you can put them on the board doubling the bandwith. Its dual-ddr. While they don't run @ 800Mhz, they have twice bandwidth per clock cycle of their DDR counterparts

echomadman

As it stands, i can't see the point on having any more than 512 mb's of ram, you will rarely use that much , even on windows xp.

I frequently max out my 512megs of ram on may machine, running win2k, you're obviously not trying hard enough

Boston

Originally posted by STaN
With this particular board... it has 2 memory controllers.

If you have 400Mhz ram, and you get 2 IDENTICLE modules, you can put them on the board doubling the bandwith. Its dual-ddr. While they don't run @ 800Mhz, they have twice bandwidth per clock cycle of their DDR counterparts

What. the msi board? the Sis648 the chipset can work with DDR400 memory but this is sort of under the table, and isn't recognized as an official "spec", hence the official term "DDR333+" support. So you can run either 333 or 400 not both at the same time. That said Using the diverse ratio settings on the 648Max you can have the CPU and the ram at two different bus speeds

STaN

no the ASUS A7N8X by the original poster

unkel

Originally posted by Truckle
As it stands, i can't see the point on having any more than 512 mb's of ram, you will rarely use that much , even on windows xp.

Yeah wasn't 640Kb enough for any of us ever? But seriously I have been happy with 512Mb for the last 3 years but would not go for less than 1Gb from the next upgrade.

As for the nforce2, I thought 2 identical (memory, bus, latency) sticks were required but I might be wrong. Anyone has the definitive on this?

STaN

A really good description of DualDDR is available here

As for what you need to enable DualDDR on the A7N8X:

Mixing different memory could lead to system instabilities or the memory modules might not run together due to compatibility issues.

Pro:
Memory performance is very fast, 266 dual channel beats out KT333 running DDR333.

STaN

I've been trying to find the piece that says you need identicle memory, but i have been reading a few reviews and they all seem go on about installing memory in "pairs". I wouldn't take chances anyway, make sure your memory will work and preferably the same in both slots.

Dooom

ok well ive just ordered another stick of 512ram. its the same type and everything thats already in the pc here but its just 512 instead of 256.

SouperComputer

my guess is that it would be fine to mix freq's and CAS's, but that you will be stuck running at the slower of the two.

STaN

Originally posted by SouperComputer
my guess is that it would be fine to mix freq's and CAS's, but that you will be stuck running at the slower of the two.

what about sizes?