About RAM - dual and 3 channel

[satimis]

Hi folks,


There are 3 channel DDR-3 RAM kits available on market. Would its performance be better than dual channel RAM kit, apart from RAM capacity?

I'm planning to build a new box testing server consolidation on virtualizaion running Xen/Vserver/OpenVZ as software. All servers running 64bit Linux OS.

My new planning is to get 2 sets DDR-3 1333/1600 4Gx2 kit. I may consider 3 channel kit dropping the total RAM capacity to 6G if it has better performance. Please shed me some light. TIA

Besides can mobo support dual channel RAM also allowing 3 channel RAM to work on it without sacrifying performance?


B.R.
satimis

 

[GhislainG]

There are 3 channel DDR-3 RAM kits available on market. Would its performance be better than dual channel RAM kit, apart from RAM capacity?

Yes if you buy a motherboard that supports triple channel DDR3 memory (Intel X58 chipset). No if you buy a motherboard that requires 2 or 4 modules to run in dual channel mode.

 

[theAnimal]

If you need more than 6GB of RAM, don't worry about the minimal speed improvement offered by triple channel.