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I just bought a motherboard that says it supports Dual-Channel RAM. The RAM I'm looking at says it's a "Quad-Channel Kit" . Will it work with my motherboard?

EDIT: Thanks all for the replies. Here is some more info:

GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD4P LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard

Here is the RAM I'm looking at:

CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (4 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory

It all looks compatible to me, I just was curious about the four channel thing.

studiohack
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jchapa
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2 Answers2

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"Quad Channel" is just a marketing ploy. It's 4 sticks of matched memory, and is the same as buying 2 dual channel kits. If your motherboard supports dual channel, and it can handle the amount and speed of the memory you purchased, you should be fine. We'd need to know your motherboard model to find specifics on what it supports though.

Edit from an anonymous user:

That was an old response. As with all technology, dual channel has advanced to triple channel and...Quad channel.

Kevin Panko
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As I wrote in another answer... ages ago, a few manufacturers made many different PCB's / modules and simply released them as the same specification memory - which technically they were.

However, these memory modules were different enough that the computer would not enable "dual channel" mode as they were not compatible with each other - if you happened to get more than one sort in a batch.

So to resolve this (mainly due to complaints), memory manufacturers released Dual channel kits. There is nothing special about these kits other than they are guaranteed to work with each other, and if your motherboard supports dual channel, so will the memory you buy.

That being said, memory seems to have become more stable in the past few years and I have not seen the rapid change of modules we used to have, so even buying individual sticks is a pretty safe bet and you should still get dual channel mode.

William Hilsum
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