Core 2 Duo w/2x2 or 4x1?

[infidel]

System ram is the question...if you had to have 4GB of system ram, which configuration would be best?

Using two 2GB sticks or four 1GB sticks? Assuming the latencies and speeds would be the same for all the modules.

Mobo will most likely be the Asus P5B Deluxe paired with an e6600.

 

[Mize]

System ram is the question...if you had to have 4GB of system ram, which configuration would be best?

Using two 2GB sticks or four 1GB sticks? Assuming the latencies and speeds would be the same for all the modules.

Mobo will most likely be the Asus P5B Deluxe paired with an e6600.

Will you OC the RAM? If not they should be about the same. If you OC or pushing timings fewer sticks is always better.

 

[Star_Hunter]

Its too bad 2x2 costs quite a bit more than 1x4 (can be twice as much with some models). As far as I can see the only one with PC-8500 or faster at 2GB is Mushkin (based on what newegg and zipzoomfly have although Corsair and others list 2GB 8500 models I don't see any out there) and two of those cost $661 compared to $331 for 4x1. With such a cost difference I would go 4x1.

 

[BRiT]

You can try out Mushkin's slightly slower family of DDR2 2G sticks, the HP2-6400. In the XtremeSystems.com forums people have overclocked them up to 530 Mhz (1060 Mhz effective) by bumping up voltage and tweaking the timings. They're about $303 sold direct from Mushkin with the VIP code. That seems to be some nice bang per value.

The VIP code of XtremeSystems.com knocks 10% off the price of all their memory, so that helps out some. Their crazy 4Gig XP2 8500 kit is down to $595 then. Their XP2 6400 kit is down to $450 and tends to overclock well too.

In either case, I suggest going with 2 * 2Gig sticks. more room for upgrading in the future and they're easier on the memory controllers than trying to run 4 sticks. It remains to be seen how well the new P35 Bearlake motherboards run with 4 sticks vs 2 sticks.

 

[infidel]

The plan is for NO overclocking, just stock speeds. And pc6400 is what we've been looking at due to price. That Mushkin HP2-6400 is one of the options we considered already, good.

I am also curious about the ram speed being taken down from its default of 800 when using all 4 slots, will this occur like it did with the Athlon64 s939's? If so, then that pretty much makes the decision(2x2GB).

Almost forgot, will I need a 64bit O/S to fully utilize the 4BG or can I still use the registry hack? My knowledge in this area is limited to the s939 era...

Thanks for the help.