4GB to 6GB - any noticeable gains?

[Flogger23m]

Thinking of upgrading my RAM from 4GB to 6GB. It is DDR2 PC6400 Corsair XMS2. My motherboard is a ASUS M3N78 Pro, AMD 9950BE (to be upgraded to an Phenom II or X6), and Vista/Win 7 64bit.

I am wondering if the extra RAM will help at all? If I am not mistaken, I will loose duel channel. So what is better, 4GB in duel channel or 6GB not in duel channel?

I mainly play games, I know as of now not many games require 4GB but I plan on keeping this PC for another 2+ years.

 

[ComputerManiac]

Duel channel is better...

I will suggest either keep the 4GB of ram, or upgrade to 8GB of 2x Dual channel...

you will lose performance when you going from 4G dual channel to 6G single channel...

 

[The Slayer]

Check your task manager to see how much ram you usually use. Unless you're constantly close to 4GB then it would probably be worth it. Otherwise, if you rarely use up what you have it would be pointless.

I have 8gb of ram in my system and I usually stay around 1 to 2gb of ram used. Occasionally it will reach 3gb if I have a lot of stuff going on or playing a game.

 

[Flogger23m]

Duel channel is better...

I will suggest either keep the 4GB of ram, or upgrade to 8GB of 2x Dual channel...

you will lose performance when you going from 4G dual channel to 6G single channel...

Thanks for the reply. I will just keep what I have and hope that games and whatnot don't start to require extra RAM in the next few years.

 

[cyclone3d]

You might possibly still have dual channel on 4GB and single channel on the extra 2GB. I know there are quite a few boards out there that work like this. Your motherboard manual will be able to tell you for certain if that is the case.

 

[Flogger23m]

Good to know, I will check the manual. If that is the case I'll get an extra 2GB.