Okay. Dual channel vs. single channel is easy to understand once it is explained to you. Basically it goes like this.
On older computers that do not support dual channel, the processor communicates to the RAM via "roadways." Now, since there is only one channel, it only has one "roadway" to travel down. It is in a sense traveling to only one city.
Single channel works like pictured below:
__________
| Processor |
| Processor |-------------[RAM]
|_________|
The information can only travel so fast, because it all has to fit down the one path. However, dual channel speeds things up, because it gives two options on how to get to its destination.
__________
| Processor |-------------------[RAM, Channel A]
| Processor |
|_________|-------------------[RAM, Channel B]
See the difference? The two RAM channels can still communicate with each other, but there are two paths that information can take so that it can get to where it needs to go. This makes your system faster overall, because there is slightly less problems with bottlenecking and whatnot.
When your memory says it is "dual channel memory" it just simply means that it will give you the best performance when you have a dual channel board. If you do not care whether or not you use dual channel, then don't worry about it. In any case, to use dual channel, you have to have a motherboard with dual channel on it. The RAM slots are usually color coated with green (for example) as one channel and purple as another channel.
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