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two 1gb ram dual channel > than one 2gb ram.

does

four 1gb ram > two 2gb?

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D60 - SB-600
18-55VR
50mm f/1.8
90mm f/2.8

What are you trying to say here??????

The only difference this will make to a machine is when you try to overclock the system. You will not get a benefit purely from having more sticks...in fact its prolly worse.

You are better of having higher capacity in higher volume i.e 2x2GB as opposed to 4X1GB ESPECIALLY when overclocking.

I can attest to this as I had my C2D6600 at 3.7Ghz (2.4Ghz default) with 2x1GB but because the falling RAM prices I got another 2X1GB and its not as stable at high FSB speeds wiith the four sticks...and I have a very high end board.

It also depends which CPU you have for the type of RAM you get....the AMD chips have the Memory controller on board so benefit from FASTER TIMINGS where as the C2D CPU benefit from faster RAM with higher bandwith the timings are not as important.

Wonda.

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Canon 40D - EFS 17-85mm IS - EF 50mm 1.8 II - EF 70-200mm f.4 L - Speedlite 580EX II - GF Lightsphere Cloud - S.I.L.K 300DX PRO Tripod - Manfrotto 679 monopod - LOWEPRO Trekkar Backback - Adobe CS3 -

@smiles77, in general I'd say no.

The main reason for going 2x1 instead of 1x2 is to get the dual channel memory interface working. Both 2x2 and 4x1 will operate in dual channel mode, so there is no significant performance difference if all else is equal.

As for the overclocking side, there's a bit of push and shove there. I never really ran with 4 sticks, but in general 4 sticks are considered less stable than 2. However, having said that, in general bigger sticks are lower performing and higher cost per capacity at top end performance. But for 99%+ of people this is an insignificant consideration. If you're getting mainstream speeds, higher capacity gives more flexibility.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Totally agree, the only thing one would achieve with a 4x1 combo is to run out of memory expansion slots which, given how computing evolves, might come in handy sooner than later.

I really haven't seen any benchmarks comparing a 2x2 vs. a 4x1, but I can tell you that, if there's any difference in favour of one or the other, it would be measurable only under test lab conditions and absolutely insignificant in practice (needless to say that the test should be done on the same system and the memory sticks should be of the same brand/type/speed/etc).

Definitively go for the 2x2.

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Nikon D90 | AF-S 18-200 VR II | AF-S 35mm f/1.8 | Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 | SB-600 | Gorillapod + Manfrotto 484RC2