dual channel performance question

[stopthekilling77]

Hey! At the moment my PC is out of commission, but upon my motherboard returning from RMA i plan on adding additional RAM...
4 extra gigs for a total of 6. Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition, thats why i'm adding the ram.

i have 2x1g mushkin sticks in there right now, both with the micron d9 chips.
i want to run similar ram at as close to the stock CAS timings as possible, would having those extra sticks give me any potential problems?
running in dual channel mode before the pc crashed, and i want to continue it as the memory bandwidth gained from single to dual was sizable.

so basically, any issues to be concerned with? any compatibility issues i might want to steer around?

thanks!

[elkmanwsu]

Thats a good question. I don't think you would have a problem as long as you get another dual channel set...you might see some stability issues just as you would see by going 4x1gb instead of 2x2..

I would honestly recommend - if you really need more ram - just go with a new 2x2gb configuration and sell your current ram. It would be less of a hassle...plus there will be no performance gain from 6gb over 4gb, but a possible performance gain from a tighter timed 2x2gb config.

[stopthekilling77]

no sense selling the 2x1gig sticks because i'll use them til they die and they're an awesome pair!

having 1x1G and 1x2G stick per channel with similar timings (current is stock at 4-4-3-12) would dampen performance?

[kenc51]

Single channel can loose upto 10% performace in some cases.
Most cases (incl. gaming with high settings) you'll only loose ~3 to 5% performance.

Make sure you set the timings to 5-5-5-15 and 2T before adding the extra sticks
Then once it boots, try lowing the timings back down, but leave the command rate at 2T...otherwise it won't boot!

:EDIT:
You might also have to increase the voltage for the ram by ~.5v and also increase the chip set voltage a tad

If there's an option for drive strength in your bios, you might have to tweak that too.