single channel "fast"(3600) ram or dual channel "slow"(2666) ram

[Giwd]

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[da na]

What CPU? Ryzen or Intel? And what motherboard?

Dual channel is always better, but is even more beneficial with Ryzen.

Here's a screenshot of my Task Manager:

So I have 8 channel of slower ram. (Consumer motherboards won't have 12 slots or 8 channels, but fill as many channels as possible is my recommendation.)

Many motherboards have 4 slots, but only run in what's called 'dual channel', which means that even if you fill all 4 slots it'll have the capacity of 4 sticks, but the memory bandwidth of 2 sticks. Your board is probably dual channel, whether it is 2 or 4 slots. If it's 4 slots, make sure you populate the correct ones with the RAM sticks for channel 1. (This can be found in your board's manual)

 

In short, dual channel 'slow'.

[SirWendall]

3 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

What CPU? Ryzen or Intel?

Dual channel is always better, but is even more beneficial with Ryzen.

Here's a screenshot of my Task Manager:

So I have 8 channel of slower ram. (Consumer motherboards won't have 12 slots or 8 channels, but fill as many channels as possible is my recommendation.)

In short, dual channel 'slow'.

Also depends on what you're wanting to do as well. Ryzen likes that high speed RAM. I'm running dual channel 32GB G.Skill dimms at 3600MHz with CL 16.

[Fasauceome]

@Giwdyou would need to do have DDR4 5333 in single channel to match the bandwidth of 2666 in dual channel. Latency is another matter but overall dual channel wins in performance.

 

4 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

So I have 8 channel of slower ram.

Not really 8 channel, also given you have 12 slots is that a triple channel board? Maybe one more dimm will benefit you. Single channel < dual channel < triple channel.

[da na]

Just now, Fasauceome said:

@Giwdyou would need to do have DDR4 5333 in single channel to match the bandwidth of 2666 in dual channel. Latency is another matter but overall dual channel wins in performance.

 

Not really 8 channel, also given you have 12 slots is that a triple channel board? Maybe one more dimm will benefit you. Single channel < dual channel < triple channel.

Well my board is complicated. It's a dual socket machine, but one of the CPUs and 4 of the DIMMs are on a daughterboard, not the same motherboard. Each board has 4 channels of memory, but the main motherboard has 8 DIMM slots, and the daughterboard has 4. I set it so that by default, CPU 0 has access to the 16 gb on its motherboard and cpu 1 has access to the 16 on its board, but if more memory is needed by either CPU, they can steal a bit of memory from the other if needed (but latency is much higher).

[whm1974]

28 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Well my board is complicated. It's a dual socket machine, but one of the CPUs and 4 of the DIMMs are on a daughterboard, not the same motherboard. Each board has 4 channels of memory, but the main motherboard has 8 DIMM slots, and the daughterboard has 4. I set it so that by default, CPU 0 has access to the 16 gb on its motherboard and cpu 1 has access to the 16 on its board, but if more memory is needed by either CPU, they can steal a bit of memory from the other if needed (but latency is much higher).

That is quite an odd Setup.

[da na]

1 minute ago, whm1974 said:

That is quite an odd Setup.

Yep it’s an old HP workstation/server.

that bit of plastic below the cpu cooler is the shroud for the daughterboard, you can see a bit of its PCB sticking out. It goes in like a giant expansion card pretty much

[whm1974]

29 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Yep it’s an old HP workstation/server.

that bit of plastic below the cpu cooler is the shroud for the daughterboard, you can see a bit of its PCB sticking out. It goes in like a giant expansion card pretty much

BTX?

[da na]

39 minutes ago, whm1974 said:

BTX?

Nah, it's proprietary but the motherboard layout looks a lot like ATX

[whm1974]

7 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Nah, it's proprietary but the motherboard layout looks a lot like ATX

Isn't there a larger Workstation ATX? I forgotten what it is called. Multiple Sockets, 8 or more DIMM Slots, NUMA but not always.And of course uses a Special PSU for Workstations/Servers.

[da na]

1 minute ago, whm1974 said:

Isn't there a larger Workstation ATX? I forgotten what it is called. Multiple Sockets, 8 or more DIMM Slots, NUMA but not always.And of course uses a Special PSU for Workstations/Servers.

Not sure, this is a standard ATX size case, not sure about the board. The PSU is proprietary too, but is ATX sized.