2 sticks or 4 sticks

[jelifah]

I am currently running the system in my sig, and have recently purchased 2 x 1GB sticks of DDR Ram. I seem to recall that speeds of a sytem are slower when using 4 sticks of RAM versus 2 sticks of RAM.

So, as the Topic Summary mentioned, should I stay with 2 x 1GB. Or would adding the extra 1 GB, 2 x 512MB, in the 2 slots be worth the 'slower' speeds?

Note: I saw in the FAQ of this forum, Item 8, that it alludes to my question, but I'm just looking for validation since it wasn't clear.
8. What's dual-channel?
A: <snip>
Dual-channel can provide up to a 5% boost. That's not much, but it's free and better than nothing. Keep in mind that adding a third stick of memory of a decent size will probably still give you a boost even though you are now running in single channel.

 

[Foxery]

The only speed hindrance I'm aware of with filling 4 RAM slots is when doing heavy overclocking on Intel-based systems. You shouldn't have any troubles with your setup.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Be sure to check the voltage requierments. You may have to up the RAM voltage a bit if the system is having trouble with 4 DIMMS.

 

[nefariouscaine]

in your current config running 4 sticks of any size will reduce the command rate which you can run them - t2 forced on 4 sticks on any AMD 939 setup vs t1 possible with only 2

other than timings and overclocking ceiling being an issue that is typically the only issue on running 4 sticks on your current setup