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Ram Question: 8 or 4 dims, Any difference?


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I'm in the process of specing out a new computer on the dell site and I'm hoping someone can help me out with a ram question. The ram is for the quad core Xeon processor. They sell 4 gigs of ram comprised of 8 dims and 4 gigs of ram comprised of 4 dims. The 4 dim setup is about $150 cheaper. Is there an advantage to going with 8 dims as opposed to 4 dims? In the long run it seems more cost effective to go with the 4 dims since you can add another 4 instead of having to buy another 8. But, if performance takes such a hit with using only 4 then I'd think I should go with 8.

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I was wondering that too; is it interleaved; is latency lower with each core accessing a separate dimm or some other esoteric freakiness? It would be nice if Dell explained the difference, esp. since it goes against common sense because higher-capacity DIMMs should cost more, not less.

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It should be priced the other way around,

8 X 512mb moduales are cheaper than 4 X 1gig modules...

Yeah, that's what I said, and the reversal implies that there is an advantage to having more DIMMs rather than fewer. I'd always tried to leave slots free to add RAM, but now...

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