Dual channel in 3 slots?

[Sensayshun]

In a few weeks time I'm upgrading my mobo to the MSI K7NF2 Delta LSR to make use of AGP 8X and to give me more overclocking options.

I'm buying it in UK but I read some reviews on newegg just to make sure and 17/17 people absolutely loved it, which is good.

It says that it has 3 memory slots and that it runs dual channel. I know dual means 2 but can I run 3 sticks of ram in dual channel? Or does that not work?

[Got3n]

i have 3 of the same stick in my current dfi nforce 2 ultra and when i boot up it says Dual channel enabled. but i dont understand it either.

[+dave164 Subscriber¹]

Nope, only 2 sticks in dual, one will be single, to have dual you put 2 x sticks of the same brand, speeds, timings, etc.. in the same colored slots

[SojIrOu]

could it be that the first 2 slots act as 1 channel and the 3rd as another? like 2x256 + 1x512?

[Sensayshun]

Nope, only 2 sticks in dual, one will be single, to have dual you put 2 x sticks of the same brand, speeds, timings, etc.. in the same colored slots

585642393[/snapback]

So would it be faster to have 2 X 512 in dual channel

Or

2 X 512 in dual channel + 1 X 512 just sat there?

[SojIrOu]

<--- two are 1 colour and 1 is another colour so that means 1 dual channel and 1 single channel i think it would be faster with just 2x512

[Nelsinho]

Nope, only 2 sticks in dual, one will be single, to have dual you put 2 x sticks of the same brand, speeds, timings, etc.. in the same colored slots

585642393[/snapback]

correct :yes:

[DWk]

Nope, only 2 sticks in dual, one will be single, to have dual you put 2 x sticks of the same brand, speeds, timings, etc.. in the same colored slots

585642393[/snapback]

No..... You don't need the exact same stick for it to run in dual channel, just the same speed. The brand is irrelevant.

As for the other things, if you use the 3 slots, you won't be using dual channel since your computer runs at the speed of the slowest, thing, that being the 3rd stick in the mobo ;)

[Sensayshun]

<--- two are 1 colour and 1 is another colour so that means 1 dual channel and 1 single channel i think it would be faster with just 2x512

585642408[/snapback]

Thanks for that :D

Looks like a nice mobo, liking the decent sized northbridge heatsink and looks like there are holes for a little fan on there too.

Off topic a bit here but in that pic the CPU looks pretty high, will I still be able to fit a nice big heatsink like the SI-97?

Looks like a RAM upgrade will be in order eventually as well then as 512mb is now only classed as standard.

[Dom]

That mobo is the same as the K7N2 Delta2 LSR?, because i got that and its really nice :)

[Zip]

ive got three different sticks in my mobo running dual channel. they're all pc3500 2-3-3-6 modules. in one bank i have 2*256 and in the other 1*512. it works in dual channel.

[Sensayshun]

So what's quicker the 3 sticks or just 2?

And I believe that is the MSI K7NF2 Delta LSR. So far I've only heard good things about it which is hopeful. Can you just verify that it does infact have AGP 8X because that's what I'm really after and alot of mobo's don't. I couldn't find anywhere that said whther it was or not.

[farmeunit]

For it 2 work for all in dual channel, you need 2 same sized sticks in the first 2 slots, and one stick equal to the 2 sticks in the other. (Ex. 2*256+1*512) If the third stick isn't equal to the first 2, it will not be dual channel. I don't believe dual channel makes that big of a difference is most apps anyway. I've got 1 gig in my machine on a A7N8X-Deluxe and have tried both modes and don't notice much difference. The benches I've seen only show a couple percent increase.

[Rudy]

my motherboard has 4 slots so i can fill it and still have dualchannel

[IK47]

in my old dell (the 8300, not the 8400),

it had 2x(256) + 2x(512)

would this work as dual channel?