jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

From watching computer people online, I get the impression that it's better two have two 8GB memory stick rather than one 16GB stick. Also, apparently, it's important to put those two sticks into two particular slots out of the four available, rather than just putting them into random slots.

What's the deal with that?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Not sure why 2x8 is "better" than 1x16......... Never had a problem with that.
(LONG time ago, can't remember the instructions, for using different size cards (like an 8 and a 16), there may have been a required order for the slots...

Most likely the way the board is designed (address and control signals), all my desktops have had instructions for populating in sequence, from "Slot 1". Never randomly inserting cards if there are less cards than fully populated.
There may be a memory controller chip on the board. It would "prefer/require" things a certain way.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Wow, did they go back to four slots? Both of my Dell towers have only two slots. One XPS 16+16, and the other Inspiron 8+8. No 3rd or 4th memory slots.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

It depends on the motherboard.

jaredjacobson

Using memory in two slots the processor can make parallel reads at the same time, which increases the memory throughput. In some cases this means the computer will process data faster.

Wallen Loc: Middle Earth

The bus, or connection of the memory has a certain speed. Dividing the load and using 2 buses in theory will enable 2x the speed.

As for the dual bus, some computers were designed to use 2 slower video cards to work together and become a faster system. Maybe they incorporate the same idea to memory buses. One thing I know, it is not advisable to use memory sticks of different sizes.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

All of my HP computers have had 4 slots, even those in the lower price range.

BebuLamar

My computer has 6 slots. You can only use 3 slots if you have 1 CPU.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

Not sure why anyone would want 8GP or even a 16GB memory stick in today's era. 64, 128, 256 or even 512GB is more the norm!

bwa

KLambar Loc: New Jersey

My Dell XPS 8940 has four memory slots.

Drbobcameraguy Loc: Eaton Ohio

Dell is a budget computer. Even their best is short cutted. They are also full of preloaded crap. To lower the price

BebuLamar

64GB is not the norm let alone 512GB of RAM for a PC.

chrissybabe Loc: New Zealand

It is called 'interleaving'. While one slot is being read another slot is being set up. They swap back and forth. Since the functions overlap slightly you end up with a speed gain. The swapping is controlled by a memory controller. Most motherboards use two interleaving channels. Motherboards with single slots probably have interleaving capabilities built in but just can't use it. My motherboard has 3 channels of interleaving so presumably gains even more speed.
You can safely ignore interleaving if the board will still work but just remember that you lose some performance.
If you look at a motherboards specs you will see that (assuming say 4 slots) there is a preferred way the memory should be added. There is a reason for this. Memory should be preferably the same kind and speed to maximise the potential speed gains of the interleaving. If you find that somebody like Dell (only an example because they all do it) has used a single 16GB chip instead of the 2 x 8GB that they should have then realize that it is because a single chip costs fractionally less than 2 chips. They are maximizing cost savings to themselves as they don't care about you gaining a slight performance increase. By reading the above comments it seems that most of you don't understand or care that you have been ripped off.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

Did you even read and understand my comment? Memory stick NOT RAM!

bwa

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

What does this have to do with the original thread? Memory sticks are being discussed.

bwa