new dual-chnnl question

[crspii]

Heres the deal:
im on this budget, and im building my comp.
and to get my good parts, im gonna have to sacrafice somethings for others. I'm gonna be getting dual channel RAM and Mobo, and i was wondering if i could buy one stick of dual channel pc3200 512MB ram such as kingston hyperx, or corsair TwinMX now, then buy an identical stick later. I didnt know if i could do this because they sell the kits that say "matched pair" and i was wondering if there are other factors involved besides having congruent speeds and the specs i gave up there ^. Also, if i can indeed do this, would two corsair xms sticks be the same as the TwinX kit? thx

 

[Fragino]

Dual-channel is a function of the motherboard chipset and not the RAM itself. You can buy a single stick now and buy another one later as long as they are identical. Corsair sells them as "matched" pairs because they (and probably others) have tested them for compatibility in dual-channel mode and have similar response when they are overclocked.

 

[g5orbust]

Matched pair kits are identical RAM chips, from the clock to the CAS latency. Everything is guarenteed identical. Because of this the chips can run at their full potential. If you were to say, buy a PC3200 stick of 512MB RAM from Corsair. Then you went and bought the same spec'd stick from CompUSA. It would work marvelously but there would be no guarentee that the latencies would be the same on the two chips. Therefore the faster one must slow itself down to match the slower one (in latency). Only company matched pairs can be guarenteed to work at the same exact specs.

 

[crspii]

so say i bought the corsair stuff that tells u the latencies, but since its not factory matched or w/e they still wouldnt be EXACTLY the same? and if so, would the difference be worth it? worth it being me having to spend more at once.... more like twice as much at once.

 

[Apokalipse]

well that depends on if you don't have the money, or need to buy something else, or even if the same RAM stick may be lower in price down the track, or even not selling anymore