Dual Channel Memory Question

[Maclarny]

I am contemplating building a gaming PC to complement a new Mac I will purchase soon. If a system has a dual channel memory archetecture does that mean that the only type of RAM you can put in it is dual channel memory?

[crazzyeddie]

If youre going to buy a new Mac, why do you need a new gaming PC with it?

[Maclarny]

The mini PC will be for LAN parties and gaming (my friends all have PCs) and the Mac will be for everything else.

[mainstreetmark]

Originally posted by crazzyeddie
If youre going to buy a new Mac, why do you need a new gaming PC with it?

Because Macs aren't very good game machines, and that's a point barely worth arguing.

[tomf87]

To answer your question, no the memory does not have to be dual channel. Dual channel is a memory usage technique built into a motherboard that is supposed to speed up memory accesses. I just used Corsair DDR memory in my old PC and it worked fine.

[snickelfritz]

Some dual channel memory module kits have SPD timings specifically designed to work reliably in certain dual-channel motherboards.
For example, the Kingston 232(CAS latency timings) kit is spec'ed to work reliably in i865/i875 boards, while the 222 kit is not.

[Sun Baked]

Not really, but in buying dual channel memory kits is the way to go -- because you need to buy memory in pairs, thus there are these kits with two sticks of memory. Supposedly matched.

Buying the kit means you'll be getting memory that'll run at the speed marked on the package.

Buying two individual sticks means the memory will most likely have to run at the slowest DIMMs speed.

Not a big deal on the Mac, but on a PC where you can tweak the settings you might forget about the slower DIMM and end up with an unstable DIMM -- corrupted memory/HD, unstable machine, etc.

[bannedagain]

By an AMD 2500+ with 2GB of DDR333, and a Radeon 9600XT, and a SATA HDD. the thing will fly and cost a pittance.

Since The 2500+ has an FSB of 333MHz, faster memory access wont make much difference.