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performance benefit of dual-channel memory (or not)

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First post, by bakemono

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I always assumed that running a matched pair of DIMMs for the dual-channel support would be faster. But I never investigated it until now. Since I got another pair of DIMMs and one of them turned out to be defective, I decided to run a few benchmarks. The result is essentially no difference, on this AMD DDR2 platform. CPU is an Athlon II X2 280...

single-channel, one DIMM (5-5-5-15-24, 2T)
cinebench 11.5 - 1.90
3dmark01 car chase - 484fps low detail, 140fps high detail
3dmark06 cpu test - 2990
MEMSPD - 4040MB/sec

dual-channel, two DIMMs, unganged
cinebench 11.5 - 1.90
3dmark01 car chase - 496fps low detail, 143fps high detail
3dmark06 cpu test - 3011
MEMSPD - 3870MB/sec

dual-channel, two DIMMs, ganged
cinebench 11.5 - 1.90
3dmark01 car chase - 486fps low detail, 142fps high detail
3dmark06 cpu test - 3004
MEMSPD - 4060MB/sec

three DIMMs (5-5-5-18-24, 2T)
3dmark01 car chase - 483fps low detail, 143fps high detail
MEMSPD - 3870MB/sec

again another retro game on itch: https://90soft90.itch.io/shmup-salad

Reply 2 of 3, by _UV_

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You will see difference in compilation, databases, VMs, archiving, etc, not in "rendering", because this things usually optimized for small memory footprint and with chunks of data matching cache lines. Some games past ~2012 have advantages when using dual-triple-quad channel memory.

Reply 3 of 3, by pentiumspeed

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Additionally, multiple-channel helps with bandwidth that is useful also not just that, integrated GPU needs this for 1080p playback for example, where bandwidth is useful rather than iGPU performance.

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

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