Single Channel vs Dual Channel vs Quad Channel Memory (2020) [Simple Guide]

You should have mentioned that it all primarily depends on the motherboard first and CPU second on whether you can use a multi-channel setup or not. Having 4 RAM slots doesn't always mean the board supports quad-channel. It doesn't matter if the CPU supports it if the motherboard doesn't. Typically a motherboard with 3 RAM slots, which is rare, is configured for triple-channel, but you should check the documentation. Most boards with 4 slots are dual-channel boards, except for several high end and server boards that are quad-channel. Most modern boards are multi-channel, but there are still single-channel boards in existence. For a motherboard with 4 RAM slots, installing 2 sticks side by side will result in single-channel config instead of dual-channel, you need to use the proper slots if you only have 2 sticks, it won't matter if you use 4.


I read thru your article and watched the video to the end, but there was no mention of this at all. I saw a mention of the motherboard, basically claiming that what configuration you have is based on how many sticks of RAM you have installed, which is wrong unless you only have one stick.

does this also mean having 4x4 is better than 2x8?

annoying voice ever

Im gonna place 4 32gb ram in my pc making it have almost as much ram as ssd... what would happen would i run out of ssd instead of ram?

How to change bios to single channel?
One of my ram slot is not working so i need to change it to single channel but i can't it's just showing “no signal”

Not all PCs use differnt collors lanes for you sticks in 2023. Mine were all black. I had to read the manual to learn my motherborad memory could use Dual Channel.

shgould i get 32gb quad channel or 16gb dual channel and r5 5600 instead of r5 5500

Permission to ask sir, so I have a motherboard that supports ddr3 ram up to 32gb with 4 ram slots, I also have a cpu (i5 3570) that supports ram up to 32gb ram but only supports 2 ram slots. I have also installed dual channel ram (2x8gb ram ddr3 pc 12800), if I add 2 more chips it will become quad channel, does it read 32gb sir? Or only 16gb? because my procie only supports 2 ram slots

You need to understand that, channel and stick count are just not the same thing.

Nothing said about RANKS

So quad channel doesn’t work on amd cpu

Wait so if I use 4x4gb ram on my amd 6300 it won’t work?

looks at wallet after buying 2 sticks of 32GB
Im so sorry little one

Never seen a custom build with SODIMM Ram lol

Most consumer grade cpu only support dual channel ram, you can see a performance boost by populating 4 slots by the fact memory is acting as in dual rank ( 64 bit bus X4)
this caused by the fact that when memory is refreshing data cant be access from that rank,
by having multiple ranks u can read write data while on a different rank while rank is refreshing. performance boost in in range of one digit %
U never what to use single channel memory for gaming no matter the capacity!

Very good

Wait you said AMD CPUs dont support quad channel? How about the ryzen 5 3600? What if i buy 2 8gb sticks of raw with 3200mhz then later on buy another 2 sticks with the same size and speed?

Salute Idol, greetings from Philippines 😍

Can 16x4 work ?

This video is MISLEADING!

Slots != Channels
A single channel usually has 2 slots, and a dual channel usually has 4 slots, a quad-channel usually has eight slots.

I have four ram slots and I only have one 16gb ram stick😂💀🤦🏾‍♂️. And fortnite runs trash sometimes. My cpu runs at 98%🤦🏾‍♂️ I don’t get it. Also does it matter the MHz on a ram stick? The one I have I believe is 2800MHz

The 'Lane' reference is amazing

There's so much wrong in this video:
1. Multiple Channel support does NOT only depend on the CPU, Motherboard must also provide the channel support you're looking for
2. At least for intel, but most likely true also for AMD, if the motherboard has 4 slots, it's dual channel ready. If it has eighth, it's quad etc. You still need a CPU that supports the number of channel you want to make use of
3. If you're not populating all your slots, you MUST pay attention to which ones you are populating. More often than not, the slots that share a channel are NON ADJACENT.
4. While some current generation consumer grade CPUs might support quad channel, you're unlikely to have the CPU motherboard combo for quad channel unless you're paying top dollar, because:
5. Quad channel+ is usually available (or at least "easily feasible") only on the Intel xeon series and AMD threadripper respectively, which in turn require much more specific sockets and motherboards (usually E-ATX, esp AMD) which are build specifically with quad channel+ in mind

Can anyone tell me core 2 duo vga and can i put 4gb ram and 1 gb ram to my pc and is it 5gb ram?

Hi I have a question so I’m getting a 32gb ram do I need 2 sticks or 4 sticks trying to play games like valorant and fortnite how many sticks should I get?

I like her

does every pc/laptop have a motherboard with a capacity of 2 ram sticks?

just a heads up btw, i couldnt continue to watch the video as youve disabled the dislikes

i am using hp zbook 17 g3 with 4 ram slot and Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1535M v5. can i mix RAMs of different bandwith. currently i am having 20gb RAM (8gb 2400T, 8gb 2133P and 4gb 2400T all being 1Rx8). can i add 16gb 2Rx8 2666v? all memorys are DDR4. when i checked my CPU memory support on intel page i see;
DDR4-2133, LPDDR3-1866, DDR3L-1600

Not technical enough. Your explanations do not address my questions. Showing video extracts of cars on the road, dollar notes and someone staring at the monitors do not help with content creation on all occasions. Please, read in more depth and do waste people's precious time. Thank you.

maybe do some game benchmarks

I'm stuck with single channel because one of my ram slots stopped working. :/

With Intel CPUs the difference is marginal. When using AMD Ryzen CPUs tho. It can definitely give you a FPS boost (average and 1% and 0.1% low figures) that is worth mentioning. Something that you also have to keep in mind, is the question: do you have a dedicated gpu? If you're using an integrated gpu multi channel ram becomes even more important. And when using an AMD APU (integrated graphics) you are going to loos quite a bit of performance when using single channel as supposed to multi channel. But whatever the case might be you are in. I would always recommend to get multi channel ram. There is just really no reason to have single channel ram

what about triple channel ?

Bought a pre build with only 1 16gb ram, going to upgrade with another one soon ;)

Is it better to fill out all 4 slots with say 4GB sticks to get to 16? Or would it be better to fill out the 2 dual channel ones with 8GB? Presuming your AMD Mobo is capped at 16 like mine.

So quad is better then dual right

do i need ram to run ram?

Thank you sister!

I never trust a channel that uses solely stock videos lmao

I just bought a pretty expensive laptop and paid $$$ it has top processor i9 and rtx and 16gb of ram. I just found out the sad news that my model has the ram has 8gb (3200), and not 16gb as I thought, soldered to the board and 8gb installed on the only one "falsely allowed to upgrade" slot. So I paid the $$$ thinking about having a high end machine that will last for years to come with just upgrading more ram in the future (I thought!). But the soldered 8gb of ram makes it impossible to go over 16gb if I want to use the advantage of dual channel. I still have 15 days to return the machine. Would you suggest me to return it? or you think it's fine to add a 16+8? resulting in 8+8 in dual channel and the remaining 8gb in single channel? I see some very demanding games are already requiring 16gb ram! I need an opinion of someone with good knowledge. Please help!

Does RAM sticks need to be equal? Or can I have an 8 GB and a 16 GB together?

If I buy a new computer I will definitely buy my RAMs Dual Channel.

What if I have dual quad channel?

I have a question. For some reason I can run 32gb ram at 3000 to 3200 MHz but when I do 16gb ram I can run it at 3600 which is on the sticks. i have 4 8gb sticks. Why can’t I run it at 3600 for 32gb

Mean while some guy: using 3 sticks of ram

Hello I hope someone can help me out. My question is I'm buying a gaming PC which has 16 GB of RAM. But with two sticks of it. Should I buy 2 more sticks of 8 gigabytes for a total of 32 or should I get two 16 of RAM sticks. I mostly bought a gaming PC so I can edit 4K videos on DaVinci Resolve. I have an Intel Core i7 11th gen 11,000 K 3.6 GHz RTX 3060 TI. MSI aegis RS. Would love any help thank you. 🙏

which 128 or 64 RAM for Gigabyte X299 UD4 PRO Aorus Ultra Gaming Pro get back to me thanks Troy