Mobile APU: Single vs Dual Channel Memory

[NinjaStyle013]

Ive had my Acer Aspire V5-552 for a little while now & have wanted to upgrade the ram in it because with it having an APU (A10-5757M) I knew it would benefit from dual channel memory. It came with 4gb soldered on from the factory with a single slot for expansion.

 

I brought a single 4GB stick to throw in to bring it up to 8gb total & more importantly, dual channel memory.

 

Heres my gaming results, I chose GTA IV & CS:GO because one runs like crap on pc & the other has been designed directly for the pc. I was hoping that this would give people a good benchmark as to what to expect.

 

I used FRAPS to measure 60 seconds of gameplay in both games.

 

First up is GTA IV which I have played through prior to the upgrade & was ok enough to get through, the game never got overly choppy.

My benchmark run was Niko walking from his apartment downstairs & out the front door, running down the street & stealing a car then driving past Roman's taxi depot.

 

Frames: 1147 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 19.117 - Min: 12 - Max: 30 4GB

Frames: 1646 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 27.433 - Min: 15 - Max: 46 8GB

 

Really great increase here, managed to bring the game up to a much more playable range. The area I was in is easily the most demanding in the game with overhead train tracks, lightposts, street vendors & powerlines all creating stress on my pc to render light & shadows.

 

Next is CSGO. I fired up a game of Arms Race on Shoots with offline expert bots.

 

Frames: 2159 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 35.983 - Min: 20 - Max: 139 4GB

Frames: 2369 - Time: 60000ms - Avg: 39.483 - Min: 23 - Max: 130 8GB

 

Not much difference here but the average & minimum have been brought up which is useful for me because the game did stutter badly at points.

 

Im not sure why the 8GB benchmarks caught more frames but they should serve well for anyone looking at proof of single vs dual channel. It only cost me 60 dollars NZD to make games much more playable for me.

 

NOTE: The graphics card is only allocating itself 512mb, I think they may be an issue with my graphic drivers so im going to try generic amd ones rather than Acers.

 

While I havent changed the memory allocation yet, installing Catalyst etc has broung GTA IV up to an average of 37 fps! Thats a 50 percent bump from a 60 dollar upgrade! Will update thread later.

 

DOUBLE NOTE: The settings for GTA IV & CSGO http://imgur.com/r48anvt,tOw414D

[PokémonTrainerFour]

Remember that you have more RAM, so it doesn't really show whether or not Dual Channel actually helped.

[Clyne]

I have the same apu on my laptop and has around the same fps in gta 4.

[Profquast]

Remember that you have more RAM, so it doesn't really show whether or not Dual Channel actually helped.

With those two games at these settings it is unlikely it was using more than 4 gigs anyway.

[NinjaStyle013]

Remember that you have more RAM, so it doesn't really show whether or not Dual Channel actually helped.

Its impossible for me to show 4gb in dual channel when 4gb is soldere on unfortunely. Neither game exceeds 4gb anywasy though so it should be fair.

[NinjaStyle013]

Dual channel duplicates bus width over single channel...

Single channel: 64-bit

Dual-channel: 128-bit (2x64 bit)

As consequence memory bandwidth is doubled, that can give some extra FPS in some cases

APUs get a major benefit from this because they need to use the system ram as graphics ram. The stuff on graphics is ultra quick so the faster the memory goes the faster your apu goes bascially. Dual channel doubles single so I get nearly double the performance.