2x2 or 4x1?

[liam]

Im just curious whats better for RAM: having 2x2gb or 4x1gb?

 

[dario03]

I would say 2x2. Gives you room to upgrade later and I believe its a little faster because its easier on the memory controller.

 

[saltynay]

Swings and roundabouts really. Generally you can get 1gb dimms at faster CAS timings for less thus essentially giving you faster ram however as dario said controlling 4 sticks adds some work load to the memory controller leading to slight slowdown.

Why are you asking do you have a couple of ram sticks waiting to be used up?

 

[CrazeD]

2x2GB for sure.

The less memory sticks you have, the more stable and overclockable it is.

 

[Apokalipse]

it's memory controller dependant how well it works with 4 sticks compared to 2.

K10 and K10.5 CPU's can run in unganged mode (splits the 128-bit memory controller into two 64-bit memory controllers), which can increase performance with 4 sticks compared to two, since it can do multiple reads/writes to memory at a time, though bandwidth for each channel halves (but the total bandwidth won't change much)

Core 2 CPU's won't have much if any difference between 2 or 4 sticks. Some earlier K8 systems had trouble with 4 sticks, but the mid and later chips didn't.

 

[thirdshiftdj]

I wouldn't worry unless you had a quad. Good thing w/ 4x1gb kits is you can actually get Micron D9's and overclock real nice. 2X2gb your most likely going to get Promos or Elpida