Motherboard says duel channel?

[ShaunW500]

So my motherboard I'm buying

MSI mPower Z77

Says it has duel channel memory and max it can have is 32GB.

When I look at what 8GB sets to get there is like duel channel and quad channel. My friend has same motherboard and has 4 sticks not 2 and it works.

Does duel channel mean only 2 sticks allowed and quad 4 sticks?

Also can anybody provide good brand for 8GB memory.

[Guest]

You don't have to keep making new threads for the same build :P. Quad channel and dual channel are different by their controller. One allows two sticks of RAM to be accessed at once where as the other allows 4. So you can populate all 4 DIMMS on the board but 1155 socket CPUs running the Z77 chipset are only capable of dual channel memory so the controller will only access a total of 16gb of Ram at once assuming you're doing 2 x 8. However it can then switch to the other set and read/write the other 16 if you have them also populated with 2x8.

Now for your ram, as its only a gaming machine you won't notice much difference between clock speeds and latency so Corsair Vengeace C9 2 x 4GB should be plenty :)

[ShaunW500]

You don't have to keep making new threads for the same build :P. Quad channel and dual channel are different by their controller. One allows two sticks of RAM to be accessed at once where as the other allows 4. So you can populate all 4 DIMMS on the board but 1155 socket CPUs running the Z77 chipset are only capable of dual channel memory so the controller will only access a total of 16gb of Ram at once assuming you're doing 2 x 8. However it can then switch to the other set and read/write the other 16 if you have them also populated with 2x8.

Now for your ram, as its only a gaming machine you won't notice much difference between clock speeds and latency so Corsair Vengeace C9 2 x 4GB should be plenty :)

So 2 sticks of 4GB, not 4 sticks because it only duel channel? but I have to ask why is there 4 dim slots?

Also I chosen one of these it just down to colour!

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(2x4gb)-corsair-ddr3-vengeance-jet-black-pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-cas-9-9-9-24-xmp-150v

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(2x4gb)-corsair-ddr3-vengeance-racing-red-pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-cas-9-9-9-24-xmp-15v

[Guest]

You don't have to keep making new threads for the same build :P. Quad channel and dual channel are different by their controller. One allows two sticks of RAM to be accessed at once where as the other allows 4. So you can populate all 4 DIMMS on the board but 1155 socket CPUs running the Z77 chipset are only capable of dual channel memory so the controller will only access a total of 16gb of Ram at once assuming you're doing 2 x 8. However it can then switch to the other set and read/write the other 16 if you have them also populated with 2x8.

Now for your ram, as its only a gaming machine you won't notice much difference between clock speeds and latency so Corsair Vengeace C9 2 x 4GB should be plenty :)

So that you can have a total of 32gb alternating on each refresh...

[ShaunW500]

You don't have to keep making new threads for the same build :P. Quad channel and dual channel are different by their controller. One allows two sticks of RAM to be accessed at once where as the other allows 4. So you can populate all 4 DIMMS on the board but 1155 socket CPUs running the Z77 chipset are only capable of dual channel memory so the controller will only access a total of 16gb of Ram at once assuming you're doing 2 x 8. However it can then switch to the other set and read/write the other 16 if you have them also populated with 2x8.

Now for your ram, as its only a gaming machine you won't notice much difference between clock speeds and latency so Corsair Vengeace C9 2 x 4GB should be plenty :)

Okay, I'm going to get 8GB 4x2GB corsair vengeance in black. Thank you for your help.

[Sauber-C10]

No dual channel is its interfacing system, as it is dual channel you will have 4 RAM slots, whereas with quad channel you will have a mobo with 8 RAM slots, so yes only dual channel memory will work in your pc, you can buy packs of 4 dual channel memory modules btw, dual channel isnt how many RAM sticks there are

[Gmac]

I would just like to point out one thing. From the RAM side of this there is no difference between quad or triple or dual channel memory. A memory module is a the same between all the different kits. A quad channel kit has just tested all 4 of the memory sticks together to make sure they work together. Same thing for a dual channel kit but just with two sticks of memory.

So the whole point of this is if you are interested in running 2 sets of dual channel memory it is often cheaper to buy 4 sticks of quad memory kit then it is to buy 2 kits of dual channel memory. Just some food for thought. If you have no interest in running 4 DIMMs then just take it as your interesting RAM fact of the day.