1gb dual channel or 2gb normal?

Computer Forum CPU, Motherboards and Memory
1

Hello, I’m wondering if anyone can give me some advice.

This is my system:

Motherboard: Intel DG965RY
CPU: Core 2 duo (E6420) at 2.13ghz (CPU-Z reports FSB at 1065mhz)
Graphics: Geforce 7600GS 512mb
RAM: 1gb DDR2 at 677mhz
HDD: Sata-300 (included because I think the access speed is relevant)

I’m looking at getting another gig of ram and I was wondering what the most useful way of using it would be - doubling the speed of my 1gb by making it dual channel (making data access use double volumes, if I understand it correctly) or moving the ram quantity up to 2gb. My time is roughly 70:30 spent on heavy multitasking (several chat clients, coding IDEs, browsers with 30 tabs etc) and heavy, access-intensive (big-textured) gaming. I don’t understand the architecture well enough; would some of the extra access speed from the dual channel be wasted because of bottlenecks? If so, how much? What would the best course of action be, given how I spend my time?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Michael

2

Best bet is 2 x 1gig..run in dual channel.

3

But what about the reduced space? Am I wrong in thinking that 2x1gb in dual channel will give me 1 gb of double speed RAM?

4

Well yes, because youre doubling the bandwidth.

The modules should be the same speed and chip count and latency.

5

2 x 1Gb is better, but, to be able to use RAM as dual channel you need 2 or more sticks of RAM and a motherboard that supports dual channel