Intel i7 Processor and Ram

[SammiCurr]

I thought the only options regarding Ram and the i7 were 3 GB/6GB (multiples of 3).

I see on Best Buy's website a i7 computer with 4GB of Ram! What is the deal?
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1218046802234

[highoctane]

You don't have to run tri channel with i7, actually dual channel mode operates at a lower latency than tri channel which can improve performance and if you run four sticks of ram I think it steps down to single channel mode.

[tjdehya]

You don't have to run tri channel with i7, actually dual channel mode operates at a lower latency than tri channel which can improve performance and if you run four sticks of ram I think it steps down to single channel mode.

It has been proven in several benchmarks that running in anyhing but tri-channel degrades performance.
Here is the PcPer Bench, Check around the web for others and you will see similar results.

[highoctane]

Yeah but thats a memory bandwidth benchmark, its purpose is to show bandwidth but in reality the average differences are somewhat negligible from what I have seen.
I'm not saying tri channel doesn't have its merit but a i7 running in dual channel is not what I would call degraded by any means.


http://xtreview.com/review232.htm


EDIT: Quote from tweaktwon:
"We have seen today that dual channel memory on the Core i7 is more than enough to keep it fed with bandwidth, especially since the CPU and memory are communicating with each other directly. There is very little lost bandwidth and it makes better use of all of the dual channel memory than the triple channel memory. However, with Intel’s plans to increase speeds and allow heavier memory usage, especially with IGP based systems, the extra bandwidth will end up being welcomed.

Our moral to this story is if you’re planning on a Core i7 system, don’t just go out and buy triple channel memory straight away. If your budget allows for it, then by all means more memory will help, especially in Vista. However, with today’s results you can see that dual channel memory is more than capable of keeping up with the Core i7."

EDIT: Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=3448&p=5