Does Socket 2011 have Dual Channel Mode?

Quad channel. I assume to dimms will work but I don't know how well.
 
I believe if you install 1 dimm you will have single channel, 2 dimms you will get dual channel. If you install 4 or 8 dimms you will have quad channel. I am not sure if there will be other supported modes.

Edit: Wait a week for confirmation of all of this..
 
well, the older Core i7 900 series chips would work fine in single/dual/triple channel mode as the cpu could use any combination, as most cpus even dual channel could technically use a single stick just fine, for trouble shooting etc, there may be a requirement for them to allow single/dual/tri/quad channel or 1/2/3/4 dimms/sticks for mismatching/trouble shooting purposes, well they would make a requirement of thier vendors that is, JDEC would probably enforce it be able to operate at a certain low speed I believe DDR3 1066 and 1 stick at 1.65v or lower or something like that, kind of like monitors, they must be able to boot into windows at 60Hz according to MS spec.

I do not know to be honest, but I would seriously be surprised if they made it HAVE TO be in quad channel mode, however, the vast performance of i7 900 series and will be socket 2011 will be the vast bandwidth and speed of transactions from cpu/IMC to memory, so I suppose in a monetary aspect it could trim costs a little, but in a performance side it may not make sence to do this, they would be effectively losing 1/2 if not more of their "rated" memory performance, which would make a blistering CPU possibly even more bottlenecked then they should be :)
 
well, if it can use quad channel, am almost 100% guranteed it can also work in triple channel, i.e single lane for single channel, dual lane dual channel, triple lane, well you get the picture, it would almost have to use triple channel to be able to use quad channel, would be odd for them to chop it out really as there is 2 banks of quads.
 
From everything I've read, it'll support any configuration, you just won't get as much bandwidth, and any number above 1 may need to be even. So you can do 1, 2, 4, and you'll get single, dual, quad. I'm not sure about triple.

Also, if you use dual-channel and fit 4 I think it will only work as dual channel.
 
There is possibility of, using an odd number for example a stick of 2gb and a stick of 4gb, beyond that I also am not sure if you can have it running in dual channel in channel A and quad channel in channel B, I do not think this would work very well :p

Also, as far as bandwidth, running dual channel in 4 of the 8 slots would probably work ok, hoever, you would be losing 1/2 the speed the chip can have in regards to bandwidth, probably fast enough anyways, but if you are thinking of doing this, you might as well get a lower end Sandy-B chip still plenty fast enough, and you only need to worry about getting a good 4-8-12-16gb kits in dual channel config, rather then the cost of getting a proper config quad channel set(you are always better on getting matched sets after all, less issues likely to happen)
 
dragonstongue said:
the cost of getting a proper config quad channel set(you are always better on getting matched sets after all, less issues likely to happen)
Click to expand...

Yes, cause the so-called "kits" are extremely different from just buying standalone two, four or eight identical DIMMs. There is no cost; the kits are just pairs of DIMMs, nothing special except for marketing.
 
My understanding......

I've read a couple of the owner's manuals on line from the X79 boards.....

Single, dual, quad channels..........depends on how many DIMMs and which slots you use.

But to me.....if you have quad channel, why do anything else......I just bought 16GB of Vengeance 1.5V memory (4x4) for 89 dollars!:eek:
 
As far as overclocking headroom, the capacity of ram, the amount of dimms used and such can greatly influence this, however, from my understanding and the reviews I have read, any good kit, you will be fine to push that chip as high as it goes anyways, they give you enough dividers to ensure that.

I am using DDR3 and of coure have used DDR2, the more slots occupied, the less capacity per dimm and single vs dual sided can someitmes compromise thier ability to overclock higher, but, becuase they are using an IMC in the chip, this is less likely to be a factor overall.

As far as the "kits" you`re right, nothing special about them, its not the sticks that make it dual or quad channel, however, you are more or less 100% guaranteed compatbility with a "matched" set then odd sets thrown together, you may save a few $ if you find odd sets of the same speed/timings and it may work just fine, but just get a good quad channel ddr3 1333 or 1600 and you`ll be fine, having XMP on it is a good thing of coure, just click one button and it sets everything the way it should(works most of the time :p)

As far as tightest timings, I believe that now relies more on the ram being used then anything else, some sets like lower speeds really tight timings, some can do high speed with loose timings, but I do not believe overall that has anything to do with the channels, as its not the ram that controls that, its the CPU or the IMC in the cpu rather, so whatever the ram is capable of, is what can be done, I highly doubt you would get much if any tighter timings or higher speeds going from dual to quad channel, though, you may if populating ALL of the slots i.e 8 in channels A1 B1 C1 D1 A2 B2 C2 D2 or just 4 of them, more slots, more voltage and such required, so usually less headroom, this was often the case in older chips/chipsets though I do not know with modern ones seeing as they have an IMC now intergrated into the chip and it is ALOT more dynamic and controlled ALOT differently then it used to be, so this may not be as much an issue anymore.
 
My understanding, and it looks like it is showing it at legitreviews, is that the 2011 will support all channel modes up to quad channel. It is up to the MB which modes they allow.

That being said, I have not seen that much performance gains in gaming when going from Dual to Triple. I have not tried Quad yet as I do not have a 2011 system. You may see some performance gains in other applications though.
 
In a general sence, for "most" users, that is single gpu and good hard drives, maybe an SSD as OS drive, even dual channel has tons of memory bandwidth to handle it, now if oyu use multi-gpu such as crossfire or crossfireX or sli-triple-quad and raided hard drives, then having the extra bandwidth will most certainly help, also having the cpu at stock or overclocked will rely more on the memory throughput then anything else.

So I guess, it owuld be silly for someone to be spending alot to be running everything at a pretty basic level, but if ou plan on doing so, dual or triple channel will be more then enough, a killer system with the latest and greatest, you might as well, so at least in theory you will not be suffering bottlenecks from lack of memory bandwidth to/from chip to chipset and auxilary stuff/

Alof of folks do dual channel/triple channel configs for some super sick setups and the rarely run out of memory bandwidth, at least directly most cpu have more then enough lanes, speed to be able to utilize just about anything you can throw at them, most important is a good fast chip, and a good motherboard that has proper supports in the sata/pci-e departement, at least I would think this, Z68 with 2x590 and sandy i5 2500k plays perfectly fine, and it is only 1/2 the bandwidth that sandy-e can achieve :)
 
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