Ok, as of now I have two 512MB sticks of Ram in my Gigabyte GA-7N400-L board. Based on this diagnostic program I ran, it said my RAM was "single" channel (guessin that means it just regulare DDR).

What I'm wondering is, if I buy a Ram kit of two more 512MB Dual Channel Rams sticks, can I get the dual channel to still work on that set while still running the other two DDR sticks (non-dual on them of course)?

:wave: Hello & Welcome to TechSpot :wave:

No, dual channel has (next to) nothing to do with the ram chips, but how the motherboard accesses the ram.

The reason you se Dual Channel RAM packages are that those are matched pairs (from the same production batch), and are supposed to give better results than two identical ram sticks bought separatly....

Also, buying dual channel sticks won't do anything for you if your motherboard/cpu doesn't support it. But you don't have to worry about that with your current mobo.

Actually, your mobo has a very good and detailed manual, which tells you how to use dual channel ram stick on page 19.
It even has support for using 4 sticks of ram, unlike many other (older) mobos.

So read that page, and if you still have questions, come back here.
If you can't find your manual, you can download it from here..

relating to your comment

Hi
Are you completely positive about all paired ram being able to run in
dual-channel? (as long as your mb supports it)
or are there some that cant handle dual-channel?
thanks for your time

Since there are no special chips on the ram sticks that make them work as Dual Channel, yes I'm sure, as long a they're both either SingleSided or Double Sided...
But both sticks should at least be of the same make (if you have one crucial, buy another crucial and not a corsair)...

But if you're planning to run them out-of-spec (overclock them), you might be better off with a paired set, since they should have the same capabilities with what speeds you can reach compared to buying 2 single sticks.

thanks

im planning on buying 2 x 512mb chips of the same type/make next week.
hopefully they will work in dual-channel mode!
I can post what exactly they are on monday as the store is getting some new stock in!
thanks again laters.

go to this site

http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/sb/CS-011965.htm

read and heed: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic65114.html

Uhm.. Instead of pasting links, take a look at the dates in this thread?

the last date I saw was Oct '07. In any case, it doesn't hurt.

Ya sometimes I miss the old posts
the wizard of dah