Dual Channel Memory Technology

[sephers]

Hi All,
I'm having troubling understanding the Dual Channel Memory on my motherboard (ASRock 775DUAL-VSTA)

In the manual it states

775Dual-VSTA motherboard provides two 184-pin DDR (Double Data Rate) DIMM slots and two 240-pin DDRII DIMM slots, and supports Dual Channel Memory Technology. For dual channel configuration, you always need to install identi- cal (the same brand, speed, size and chip-type) DDR / DDRII DIMM pair in the slots of the same color. In other words, you have to install identical DDRII DIMM pair in Dual Channel A (DDRII_1 and DDRII_2; Yellow slots; see p.10 No.6) or identical DDR DIMM pair in Dual Channel B (DDR1 and DDR2; Blue slots; see p. 10 No.7), so that Dual Channel Memory Technology can be activated.

At the moment I have this RAM: Samsung 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2700 DDR 333 MHz RAM

So this will go in the Blue Slot as that is DDR.

The manual also has this warning:

1. It is not allowed to install a DDR memory module into DDRII slot or a DDRII memory module into DDR slot; otherwise, this motherboard and DIMM may be damaged.
2. It is not allowed to install both DDR and DDRII memory modules to this motherboard at the same time; otherwise, this motherboard and DIMM may be damaged.

So what can I install into the Yellow Slots? Or is the idea that I either have DDR in blue or DDRII in Yellow never both, thus leaving me with only 2 ram slots available at a time? :confused:

Thanks for any help,
Sephers.

 

[BoBBYI986]

Hi you motherboard has two memory controllers intergrated in the northbridge chipset (MCH) the blue slots are for DDR1 modules only. The yellow slots are for DDR2 only.

The motherboard supports dual channel. Dual channel means the cpu can request twice the amount of data than single channel configuration. e.g. your memory is PC2700 ddr 333mhz (x2 = 667mhz = 5400MB/s). PC2700MB/s is the amount of data the cpu can request in single channel configuration but in dual channel it can request twice that amount so 5400MB/s. It basically acts like a two disk Raid 0, it can access both drives and request twice the amount of data.