8 gb of 3200 MHz Single Channel or 16 gb of 2400 Mhz Dual Channel for Laptop?

[PythonNex]

8 gb of 3200 MHz Single Channel or 16 gb of 2400 Mhz Dual Channel for Laptop?

Which is going to be better for Gaming and Overall performance?

CPU: Ryzen 5 5600H 

 

 

[RONOTHAN##]

2400MT/s dual channel all the way. Dual channel effectively doubles the memory speed, so it will end up ~33% faster than the single stick of 3200MT/s will be, and since Ryzen laptops tend to run desynced FCLK no matter what for some reason (there might be some that don't, but a lot just run a set FCLK value of ~1500MHz IIRC) the higher clock speed won't help you there. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

42 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

2400MT/s dual channel all the way. Dual channel effectively doubles the memory speed, so it will end up ~33% faster than the single stick of 3200MT/s will be, and since Ryzen laptops tend to run desynced FCLK no matter what for some reason (there might be some that don't, but a lot just run a set FCLK value of ~1500MHz IIRC) the higher clock speed won't help you there. 

Why do they run desync fclk?

Also can ryzen controller change fclk? I think i saw in some videos that ryzen controller can change fclk

 

Yes dual channel over single channel, but like why get sticks that slow? No 3200 sticks? And also i highly advise checking the rank configuratin to make sure you arent getting garbage half rank (1rx16) which makes the rams perform about 70% of single rank (1rx8).

 

I think you may be best off buying some 2400/2666 dual rank (2rx8) generic used ddr4 sodimms, you get about 20% bandwidth uplift over single rank and should come pretty close to 3200 single rank and problably straight up nuke 3200 half rank

 

you can tell rank configuration by looking at the rams themselves (assuming not fully covered by stickers) or said stickers assuming they contain the ram speed and rank config information. 1rx16 garbage half rank only has 4 ics on 1 side, 1rx8 single rank has 8 ics on 1 side or i think theres a weird variant with 4 ics on both sides, and 2rx8 dual rank has 8 ics on both sides

[porina]

3 hours ago, PythonNex said:

8 gb of 3200 MHz Single Channel or 16 gb of 2400 Mhz Dual Channel for Laptop?

Which is going to be better for Gaming and Overall performance?

Don't forget the capacity difference also. 8GB is a bit tight these days. 16GB will allow for a more comfortable experience in general.

 

2 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

2400MT/s dual channel all the way. Dual channel effectively doubles the memory speed, so it will end up ~33% faster than the single stick of 3200MT/s will be, and since Ryzen laptops tend to run desynced FCLK no matter what for some reason (there might be some that don't, but a lot just run a set FCLK value of ~1500MHz IIRC) the higher clock speed won't help you there. 

Bandwidth from dual channel is hard to beat, but I wasn't aware of the FCLK thing in laptops. Will have to look at mine more closely later. It does seem a trend that AMD is finally moving more towards async especially with Zen 4.

 

2 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

you can tell rank configuration by looking at the rams themselves (assuming not fully covered by stickers) or said stickers assuming they contain the ram speed and rank config information. 1rx16 garbage half rank only has 4 ics on 1 side, 1rx8 single rank has 8 ics on 1 side or i think theres a weird variant with 4 ics on both sides, and 2rx8 dual rank has 8 ics on both sides

Single vs 2 rank has been a thing for a long time, but I guess I missed the memo on "half rank". Is this the same as the thing on lower capacity DDR5 modules? I'd argue it is still technically single rank, since it's the banks that are different between them.

 

 

This is actual ram in my laptop for example. Came with them. 4 chips one side, and even says 1Rx16 on the label. Not sure if it is worth the effort in my case to try and chase down x8 modules, or even better 2R. Randomly searching around the topic I found the following Asus page an interesting read to get up to speed, as it were.

https://rog.asus.com/ch-en/articles/g-series-gaming-laptops/ram-chips-are-changing-2021-rog-laptops/#:~:text=1RX8 sticks of memory have,CPU accesses information in memory.

 

 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

3 hours ago, porina said:

Single vs 2 rank has been a thing for a long time, but I guess I missed the memo on "half rank". Is this the same as the thing on lower capacity DDR5 modules? I'd argue it is still technically single rank, since it's the banks that are different between them.

 

 

This is actual ram in my laptop for example. Came with them. 4 chips one side, and even says 1Rx16 on the label. Not sure if it is worth the effort in my case to try and chase down x8 modules, or even better 2R. Randomly searching around the topic I found the following Asus page an interesting read to get up to speed, as it were.

https://rog.asus.com/ch-en/articles/g-series-gaming-laptops/ram-chips-are-changing-2021-rog-laptops/#:~:text=1RX8 sticks of memory have,CPU accesses information in memory.

Well 1rx16 is literally half of single rank (4 ics vs 8 ics) and definitely has inferior bandiwdth vs single rank

 

But since its already dual channel and 3200mhz dont really think its worth chasing down the dual rank modules since those are always generic bare pcb modules, and i think dual rank 8gb sticks are primarily older sticks so youll likely see 2133-2666 being the most common speeds since those ancient 4gbit ics could only go as fast as the crappy imcs of the first few ddr4 gens, some definitely capable of 4000+ or atleast 3200 bin but shit imcs of back then only topped out at 2666