I recently upgraded a machine from an AMD X2 CPU to an AMD Phenom X4 and notice options for toggling ganged vs unganged for the DDR2 memory on that machine.
Can someone explain what the difference is between the two? Which setting is most suitable for a general purpose file/app/db server?
Long story short, ganged treats the memory subsystem as a single 128-bit bus, while unganged treats the memory subsystem as dual independent 64-bit buses.
Ganged favors some single-threaded software, but AMD generally recommends unganged for typical modern system configurations, especially if you are commonly multitasking multiple applications.
Basically, Gang versus unganged is more about the memory access model being used.
According to r0ca I guess my rule of thumb would be: I would go ganged if I was running an older single core cpu's Unganged if I had 2 or more cores.
