what is a tri-channel ram?

truesony

Baseband Member
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can someone please explain in simple terms to me what a tri-channel ram is? what i know now is that it is in relation to a motherboard...thats about all i know?

so if someone can tell me what a tri channel ram mobo is and how it is better for gaming i would be very appreciative...

thank you
 
Triple channel memory works by having the memory controller divide memory usage between three (or a multiple of three) sticks, theoretically tripling memory speeds. In practice, performance will increase in a few situations (file transfers, memory intensive games, such as Crysis or anything with tons of objects, CPU renderings, etc.)

i can go much more into detail if you would like.
 
so it allows me to add a third ram stick? cause i thought that a dual channel could have multiple spots for ram....?
 
Yes. Dual channel uses two (or a multiple of two) modules (or sticks), while triple channel uses three (or a multiple of three) modules. You'll notice on some newer motherboards that there are six memory slots as opposed to four.
 
For the moment, in the consumer world, yes. Only the Intel camp supports tri channel.
 
DDR3 does not mean tri channel though, although to the best of my understanding only DDR3 can be tri channel. So while some amd boards use DDR3, they don't support tri channel (to the best of my knowledge)
 
DDR3 does not mean tri channel though, although to the best of my understanding only DDR3 can be tri channel. So while some amd boards use DDR3, they don't support tri channel (to the best of my knowledge)

Correct. DDR3 is an evolutionary design step above DDR2 and supports more throughput as compared to DDR2 because DDR3 transfers more data per clock than DDR2, and supports lower operating voltages to reduce power consumption. Tri- and dual channel just refers to the amount of memory channels available on a motherboard for the system to use. The motherboard / CPU combination will generally dictate which arrangement is true. Intel LGA1156 is dual channel, while Intel LGA1366 is tri-channel. All of AMD's recent sockets support dual channel (Socket 939, 940, AM2, AM2+, AM3)
 
Correct. DDR3 is an evolutionary design step above DDR2 and supports more throughput as compared to DDR2 because DDR3 transfers more data per clock than DDR2, and supports lower operating voltages to reduce power consumption. Tri- and dual channel just refers to the amount of memory channels available on a motherboard for the system to use. The motherboard / CPU combination will generally dictate which arrangement is true. Intel LGA1156 is dual channel, while Intel LGA1366 is tri-channel. All of AMD's recent sockets support dual channel (Socket 939, 940, AM2, AM2+, AM3)

That's pretty much what I thought, but I haven't been really paying attention to this sort of stuff lately :p
 
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