What is the difference between single and double sided ram

Hi all, A friend of my father asked him whether double sided ram is better than single sided. I have never heard of ram being referred to as double or single so am wondering what it means and which one is better so i can tell my father so he can tell his friend. PC eye banned. Dual sided memory is very much the standard now. The older single side simm saw the IC chips on one side only there and were typically DDR value memory used on older systems. On some older prebuilt systems you had to use only single sided dimms on those while boards ordered for custom cases often supported both dual and single sided.

SirKenin banned. They are typically OEM and they have very limited compatibility. The trick is having the manual there so you can figure out which RAM has to go into which slot if you're going to mix them. Dual Sided is 8 chips on each side, Single sided is 4 or 8 chips on one side. I just hadn't heard of Ram being referred to as double sided which is what had me confused. And it is actually possible to have single rank modules with chips on both sides. SirKenin said:. Click to expand Originally posted by: Peter With fewer chips on the DIMM, the signal integrity on the common bus will be less affected, and thus, a higher speed will be achievable.

May 20, 0 No you don't have "half as much data running down the pipe". The signal integrity is better with fewer chips because every piece of silicon and every length of PCB trace introduces parasitic capacitance onto the common bus, which washes out the signal transitions from sharp edges to slower slopes, thus limiting the maximum operating frequency of that bus.

May 10, 0 The problem is that there are various wires that go to these RAMS. When you double the number of chips attached, you double the capacative loading. In short, it now takes more electrons traveling down the wire in order to send the signal. This means that it now takes just a little bit longer, and you have to slow down as a result.

So ripping out half of your RAM is more likely to hurt than to help. Feb 24, 2 0 0. Does anyone know what it is? EightySix Four Diamond Member. Jul 17, 5, 49 Generally mb and up is double JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. Previous Next Sort by votes. Aug 18, 27 0 10, 1. My search of the question brings up ancient replies referring to single or dual bank addressing irregardless of number of chips, but I have a collection of 1 GB ddr2 with a small handful of ram with chips on one side.

Are these better or worse, is there a preferred purpose for these? Oct 3, 4, 28 26, Single sided RAM is single rank. Double sided RAM is usually dual rank. There is also quad and octal rank memory. The purpose of multi-rank modules is to increase module density.

Another benefit of multiple rank is, having more open memory pages, which in some cases can increase performance. A downside to all of this however is that more ranks increase loading on the memory controller, and each controller has a limit to how many ranks it can handle, and how fast it can handle them. A perfect example is the new Ryzen CPU. The memory controller appears to give better performance with dual rank than single rank, for a given memory speed, but folks are finding that you can't clock the dual rank modules as high.

The memory controller just doesn't tolerate it as easily. As far as the memory you have is concerned, it's not really better or worse when you aren't comparing it to anything. Dual rank modules might give you a very small performance advantage from time to time, but the single rank modules should be compatible with more memory controllers. Single sided memory uses half the memory modules as double sided memory of the same capacity. What is true about a double sided DIMM? It runs synchronously with the system clock.

What is true about a double-sided DIMM? It has memory chips on the front and back. What is an advantage of using double sided memory over single sided memory? Double sided RAM is usually dual rank.