Is a memory upgrade really worth it?

[JoyMonkey]

I've got a machine built around an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe motherboard and I've been using two sticks of 512mb PC2700 memory in it. It runs really well, but to take advantage of the 'Dual Channel' memory speeds I'd need to replace the memory with two sticks of PC3200 memory (a $170 upgrade).

If I was to splurge and spend the cash on the upgrade, would there really be that much of a noticeable difference in system performance?
Is there somewhere that I can look at numbers on this?

I use this machine for everything, all the time, so I'd like it running pretty fast; but then I don't like spending money on something that I sort-of already have (if it aint broke don't fix it mentallity kicking in here).

[zaphod]

I will stick my neck out and say you wouldn't notice any benefit (besides a lighter wallet).  I'd save the money.

[Goz]

Dual Channel RAM effectively doubles your memory bandwidth.

It does make a difference in performance. I've noticed that benchmarks tend to reflect Dual Channel on a INTEL platform being better utilized than on the AMD side. Not sure of why, likely chipset configuration.

If you are doing content creation on the machine, I would certainly go dual channel.

Here's a link to some specs / benchmarks Here's a link to some specs / benchmarks
-Goz

[JoyMonkey]

I see there's a big difference in opinion here.

What if I 'downgrade' to 512mb of Dual Channel 3200, instead of my current 1Gig of 2700 single channel ? I can handle spending $90 on a needless upgrade a lot better than $170.

Is 1Gig a little excessive anyways?

[zaphod]

I see there's a big difference in opinion here.

What if I 'downgrade' to 512mb of Dual Channel 3200, instead of my current 1Gig of 2700 single channel ? I can handle spending $90 on a needless upgrade a lot better than $170.

Is 1Gig a little excessive anyways?

I guess it would depend how you use your machine.  Using myself as an example, my main home system is used for some general business apps, surfing, some graphics work and the rare bit of video editing.  The dual-vs.single-channel comparisons I've found show I  'might' see a 10% increase.  For me, that is hardle worth spending the money on.  However, if you run a lot of memory-intensive apps, the faster memory might make more sense.  What processor are you running?

As far as the quantity, if you routinely are gobbling up more than 400Meg of RAM during normal useage, then the extra 512 would be very useful.  I assume you are running XP, which will happily use all the RAM you throw at it.  I believe (don't quote me) that Win2000 stops seeing any benefit at 768meg.

[JoyMonkey]

I guess it would depend how you use your machine.  Using myself as an example, my main home system is used for some general business apps, surfing, some graphics work and the rare bit of video editing.  The dual-vs.single-channel comparisons I've found show I  'might' see a 10% increase.  For me, that is hardle worth spending the money on.  However, if you run a lot of memory-intensive apps, the faster memory might make more sense.  What processor are you running?

As far as the quantity, if you routinely are gobbling up more than 400Meg of RAM during normal useage, then the extra 512 would be very useful.  I assume you are running XP, which will happily use all the RAM you throw at it.  I believe (don't quote me) that Win2000 stops seeing any benefit at 768meg.

I'm running an AthlonXP 2700+ 333FSB with WindowsXP on a dual Raptor SATA striped raid right now, and I do a lot of video encoding with this machine (which I would imagine is pretty CPU and memory intensive).
I'm not sure how much memory is in use on the machine all the time, whats a good app to check it with?

EDIT: Never mind, I found an app called Freemeter that's telling me all I need to know about memory usage. I dropped the system down to 512mb to see how it'd run, it seems to be using about 80% to 90% of the 512mb all the time, so I guess 1Gig is really what I need.