Quad channel Ram in a 4 Slot motherboard

[FuuMasta]

I know hat the most recent Intel CPUs only support dual channels but has this been a thing in the past?

I mean, for Mini-ITX motherboard, where there is only 2 Ram Slot... Most of them are dual channels.

So why do we have to get a big E-ATX motherboard with 8 ram slots to use quad channel?

[svmlegacy]

10 minutes ago, FuuMasta said:

I know hat the most recent Intel CPUs only support dual channels but has this been a thing in the past?

I mean, for Mini-ITX motherboard, where there is only 2 Ram Slot... Most of them are dual channels.

So why do we have to get a big E-ATX motherboard with 8 ram slots to use quad channel?

You don't need to. https://www.asrock.com/mb/intel/X299E-ITXac/index.asp

[-rascal-]

8 minutes ago, FuuMasta said:

I know hat the most recent Intel CPUs only support dual channels but has this been a thing in the past?

I mean, for Mini-ITX motherboard, where there is only 2 Ram Slot... Most of them are dual channels.

So why do we have to get a big E-ATX motherboard with 8 ram slots to use quad channel?

 

Number memory slots =/= Number of channels.

It is up the the CPU to call the shots for dual / triple / quad channel, etc.

 

2 or 4 slot motherboards can be dual channel.

You just have 2 memory slots for each channel (2x Channel A, 2x Channel B).

 

Quad channel could ALSO be 4 slots, or 8 slots.

[Windows7ge]

I think it's because of how the overall market has been designed and how standards have been implemented. Most of the board partners choose to follow the current standard but as svmlegacy exampled you can find edge cases where a manufacturer will venture outside the norm.

 

It also has to do with platform segregation. Mainstream, Enthusiast, Workstation/Server. If you need quad channel it's assumed you might want to increase how much RAM you have later without buying denser DIMMs. With 8 slots you can just add four more sticks. It's a feature thing where it's setup in the way that manufacturers think we want it or how they want us to want it.

 

Quad-channel in ITX would require the use of SODIMM modules (laptop RAM) just because of space constraints and most people who need the extra CPU cores will likely need more than a single X16 PCI_e slot so it's kind of like a forced bundle package deal. If you want quad channel on ATX you're going to end up with 8 slots the overwhelming majority of the time.