streetlightman

I'm buying a computer for my aunt and I'm either going to put in 2GB or 3GB of DDR2 RAM. If I put in 3GB it'll be 1 1GB and 1 2GB stick. I know it would be in dual channel mode but I'm wondering what affect it'll have on system performance. will i be able to notice a difference?

also, the computer will be just for general use, no games or anything like that

Thanks

Deviance

You won't see a noticeable difference (5%-15% at best), at this point, with prices the way they are, you might as well buy whichever is cheaper.

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ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

xxbassplayerxx

Really, the biggest problem would be from the mismatched sticks. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. Your best bet is to grab two identical sticks. If your aunt only browses, emails, and watches videos online, she'll be fine with 2GB. You only need more when you start doing some crazy multitasking like running Windows Media Center and transferring files and browsing, etc.

I'm on my folding rig and it only has 1GB. I can have about 5 tabs open in Chrome as well as EVGA Precision, and F@H running before it starts to lag noticeably.

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BlackOmega

When you have 2 mismatched sticks of RAM in, it will only run as fast as the slowest stick.

As others have said, either get 2 GB or 4GB of matching sticks, whichever is cheapest. RAM is fairly inexpensive, might as well not skimp on that portion of it.

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streetlightman

thanks guys

xxbassplayerxx

Any time

Welcome to OCN! Stay for a while.

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version2

In theory, dual channel ram provides the twice the speed for reading/writing to memory because you're adding an extra bus. You will find this is not exactly the case for a number of reasons.

Go for price and speed. Don't worry too about much performance for a general use computer.