Single Channel vs Dual Channel vs Quad Channel Memory (2020) [Simple Guide]

When you're buying RAM for your new or existing PC, you'll have to decide if you want to configure the RAM in single, dual, or quad-channel modes. If you install one RAM stick, the stick will run in a single channel, two RAM sticks will run in a dual channel and four RAM sticks can run in a quad-channel if your motherboard supports it.

But which configuration should you use - single, dual, or quad-channel? Which is best for gaming? That's what we'll help you with in this video! Keep watching.

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0:42 What are Single, Dual, and Quad Channel Configurations?
1:36 Effect of Performance
3:24 Reasons to go Multi-Channel
4:58 Conclusion

[aquaventus]

You should have mentioned that it all primarily depends on the motherboard first and CPU second on whether you can use a multi-channel setup or not. Having 4 RAM slots doesn't always mean the board supports quad-channel. It doesn't matter if the CPU supports it if the motherboard doesn't. Typically a motherboard with 3 RAM slots, which is rare, is configured for triple-channel, but you should check the documentation. Most boards with 4 slots are dual-channel boards, except for several high end and server boards that are quad-channel. Most modern boards are multi-channel, but there are still single-channel boards in existence. For a motherboard with 4 RAM slots, installing 2 sticks side by side will result in single-channel config instead of dual-channel, you need to use the proper slots if you only have 2 sticks, it won't matter if you use 4.


I read thru your article and watched the video to the end, but there was no mention of this at all. I saw a mention of the motherboard, basically claiming that what configuration you have is based on how many sticks of RAM you have installed, which is wrong unless you only have one stick.

[erii]

Is 64GB ram at 3200mhz enough to open chrome?

[usernamehandle]

Shout out to whoever’s choosing the stock footage for this video. They know what’s up

[therealxras]

Pffft, the human eye can't see over 1/2 of a channel.

[nonickname]

Threadripper uses quad channel not dual channel....

[jkwj]

I have an centumchannel ram setup. I have over 9000 tb of ram installed. The power supply installed runs a small kugelblitz array and can melt tungsten from over 1 mile away. The entire system is cooled to near absolute zero, warping time around the actual machine. The case is made out of an unobtainium-graphene alloy and stands at 20 feet tall, weighing about the size of a skyscraper. The CPU and "hard drive" installed is the mass produced, cloned brains of Elon Musk, Nikola Tesla, and Albert Einstein wired to an array of components enslaving the consciousness of each organism in part, each brain is fed one blended cow's worth of nutrients each hour, else it yearns for human flesh- not because it needs it, but because it wants to experience other's suffering. The GPU I have installed is a wish granting fairy I branded with the Nvidia logo... it's just chained to a shoebox, I dont know how it works, but it produces 100k resolution at fps. Turning the machine on for the first time caused massive earthquakes and led to the extinction of several alien planets.


Fucking thing still cant run Chrome, though.

[AvgDan]

Never trust a video with Likes/Dislikes turned off...
Not sure why AMD processors were mentioned as only supporting dual channel but then show an AMD Threadripper 1950x which supports quad channel memory.

[GRREZ]

2:10 that road analogy really helped me sink it in my brain, thanks

[Saigonas]

1:12


Threadripper: am i a joke to you?

[jmadluck]

"The number of vehicles that roads with more lanes can handle is exponentially larger." It's not - it's linearly larger. 2 lanes can handle double one lane, 4 lanes can handle 4x one lane, etc. In order for the increase to be exponential, it would have to mean something like this: doubling the number of lanes yields 4x the capacity, quadrupling the lanes yields 16x the capacity, etc

[leocorral]

Amazing, I am currently buying parts and I was going to go with a single 16GB. This was really helpful.

[aivv]

1:45 lol that's linus holding up RAM in his RAM techquickie video

[scharkalvin]

Most motherboards that have 4 dimms are dual channel. You CAN have two dimms per channel, but only two total dimms are used at a given moment. A dual channel setup interleaves memory access between two dimms. Two dimms per channel only adds more memory, the two dimms equal a single dimm of double the memory.

[Malficion]

you can't convince me I didn't make a terrible decision in lyfe!
*Stares at 4 16GB Trident Z Royal ram sticks*

[TechWeLove]

With all the pretty video editing, it's Abit disappointing that you did not show any benchmarking statistics to back up your talk about single, dual, and quad channel configurations.

[beefstickswellington]

Theoretically the multi-lane approach should increase the throughput multiplied by the channels, but since we almost never USE THE MAX BANDWIDTH for long periods of time, it almost never caps the memory lanes. Now, if ALL the channels of memory were being filled at a ridiculously high maximum throughput for a long period of time, then we'd see the multi-lane performance showing up by multiples for each added channel or pair of dual channel sticks. Most operations are too small to really use up the bandwidth, or the ram is waiting for SSD/CPU/GPU operations that we only see a couple of percent difference since by the time the operations are executed and the memory is read for more.

[XxPPslayer]

very simple:

quad channel-GOOD

single channel-BAD

[Chiken]

The human eye can’t see more than single channel

[agnotwot]

AMD's threadripper cpu's support quad channel...

[technofeeliak]

I didn't hear you mention anything about the speed of the motherboard.