1

I was reading the answer on this post, where it says:

When you buy RAM, you get it in pairs, as it turned out each pair/memory stick can only work on memory channel 1 or memory channel 2.

If you put a pair of memory that designed to work only on channel 1, on channel 2 (like I did unknowingly)

I have never heard of this before, nor can I find any information about it anywhere. When buying RAM, there are the options for capacity and latency, but there is no option for memory channel.

Is the information above wrong?

sergiuser
  • 13

2 Answers2

2

Current common CPUs have a memory controller in them, the memory controller typically has two channels, and each channel can work with one or two DIMMs.Crude graphic to represent that

The channels are a characteristic of the memory controller, not the RAM. You don't buy "RAM for channel 1" or "RAM for channel 2".

If not all the RAM slots are filled, some motherboards require particular slots to be used—check the motherboard documentation.

For a lot of articles about try to mix RAM, search for "can ram be mismatched".

Andrew Morton
  • 3,935
1

It's not possible to design or optimize a memory module for a particular channel because from module's perspective they are indistinguishable. The concept of channels is only a thing inside the memory controller and above it in the abstraction hierarchy.

gronostaj
  • 58,482