SUMMARY: Dual Channel, Dual Channel, Dual Channel - it is one of the key buzzwords taking the IT industry by storm at the moment courtesy of chipsets from nVidia and Intel. Which Dual Channel branded memory kit do you choose? Do you even need actual branded Dual Channel memory? Which overclocks the fastest? Shawn "Toxic" Baker answers all these questions in this 20-page monster roundup comparing memory from Crucial, Mushkin, Kingmax, TwinMOS, Buffalo and Corsair!
Memory is something we all need and usually it seems to be the more you have the better your system will run and while in the past that is what helped create the better gaming rigs we now have the opportunity to play with a new technology that was introduced to us not too long ago. The nForce 2 chipset was the first to offer us Dual Channel Memory support on the AMD front and the Granite Bay chipset was the first we saw from Intel. While AMD still only has the nForce 2 chipset, Intel users now have Springdale and Canterwood to help create the fastest rigs around. Where the Granite Bay chipset was limited by only PC2100 Dual Channel memory, we can now go full throttle PC3200 on the new Springdale and Canterwood chipsets on offer from Intel.
With all these new chipsets support Dual Channel, we are now coming to the point where instead of people looking for that single high speed stick of RAM they are now hunting for those two perfect sticks to help give them those extra frames per seconds or 3D marks under the extra pressure which Dual Channel puts on them.
TweakTown thought that it was about time we get some of the more aggressive memory manufacturers together and not so aggressive to see how they go when running in Dual Channel mode. People upgrading have heard a lot of rumors of memory modules not working together when in Dual Channel mode and we intend to see if that is the case or not when teaming two high performance sticks up with the latest chipset on offer, Intels Canterwood or 875Pro, which supports Dual Channel DDR400.
The board we are going to be using is one of our labs favorite - the Abit IC7 teamed up with ATIs Radeon 9800 Pro - we will see what the sticks can do, how they handle the high front side bus and their overall performance in what is one of the most powerful desktop computer systems today.
We are going to be looking at a host of different memory modules today from such companies like Kingmax who offer very affordable DDR 400 modules to some of the more expensive performance modules on the market from such companies as Corsair and Mushkin. Lets get a move on and have a look at the modules we have on offer today and see which ones like running above their specifications which is what we want as true enthusiasts.
