Hi, I currently have 2 512mb sticks of pc6400 DDR2 ram and have got 2 1MB sticks of the same speed on the way. My current RAM is running dual channel and I know I could set the 1 GB sticks the same way, but not all 4 sticks at once. My question is, would I be better off using just the new sticks at 2GB in dual channel or would I see more performance using all 4 memory modules that total 3GB not in dual channel mode? Thank you!
It depends on what you do mate. Do you really need 3gb of ram? Im not up to date with the requirements of games but im sure 2gb will be suffice in most cases... especially if you are not using vista. Games are probably the biggest killer for most people.
personally I`d have the more RAM and possibly suffer the SLIGHT decrease in speed, considering its an athlon 64 with a DDR controller on die, you wouldn't notice barely anything. XP should pick up about 2.75/3GB of RAM anyway. Moving to 64 bit would definitely pick it all up. Not too sure about 32 bit vista mind.