Is 2 x 8 GB RAM faster than 1 x 16 GB RAM ?

jimbo45 · Nov 25, 2021

Using identical components in theory is always better but unless you are an ultimate performance freak / geek with probably quite specialised video / gpu's I'm not sure why RAM provided it's rated at similar speed would make any difference. I can't see an Engineering case is the spec's are almost identical. 32 GB RAM is the same from the OS's point of view whether it's 8 X 4, 2 X 16 or 1

barman58 · Nov 25, 2021

I had the same understanding, however when I decided to up the ram on my current desktop, [After I'd speced and had the system built there were some changes to the Image processing software I use, so I decided I needed more ram], I suggested that I would add two additional 16GB modules of the identical spec to the current modules to double the installed ram, the builder then suggested that two 32GB modules was the best way to go as this would be more efficient and faster in use. As the builder also agreed to take back the original Modules and I would just pay the difference - I went with this way

These builders are the most awarded builders here in the UK, so I took their word for it, as it was based on experience and real world tests rather than the theory. Of course this in a system using a Rysen 5950x and It could be different with other setups or processor Memory specs

ShamrockRig · Nov 25, 2021

spapakons said:
High Performance plan and Ultimate Performance plan might seem the same, but the latter forces turbo boost always enabled.

Previous i mentioned that i changed my high performance plan settings to match the ultimate one without knowing it even existed, So yeah it is the same for me as turbo was already set to always enable in high performance:)

ShamrockRig · Nov 25, 2021

Almighty1 said:
Modifying High Performance Plan is not the same as the Ultimate Performance plan when it comes to performance even though you might get the setting on High Performance Plan to be the same, they do not perform the same. Someone else actually mentioned this when I posted about disabled Modern Standby in another thread. Doing a search on google, some people also claim that High Performance mode only benefits laptops and not desktops and Ultimate Performance is a bunch of baloney since what's stored in the registry is what matters.

Almighty1 said:
The code is not hard... First, you need to make sure you have S3 Power mode enabled and Modern Standby disabled or else the the other power plans will not show up. You can usually tell if you have S3 or not by looking in Device Manager at the properties of the networking card, it should have a Power Management tab. If it doesn't:

Setting PlatformAoAcOverride to 0 under HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power. Removing the entry again to get back modern standby.

Open cmd.exe as admin and run:

reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power /v PlatformAoAcOverride /t REG_DWORD /d 0

You can just run regedit as admin and delete PlatformAoAcOverride under HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power again to revert back. Or just as admin in cmd.exe:

reg delete "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power" /v PlatformAoAcOverride

Then for the powerplans...

Restore Power Plans:
powercfg -restoredefaultschemes

should restore whatever the defaults are. And you can use the following to enable those that is not showing up.

Power saver:
powercfg -duplicatescheme a1841308-3541-4fab-bc81-f71556f20b4a

Balanced:
powercfg -duplicatescheme 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e

High Performance:
powercfg -duplicatescheme 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c

Ultimate Performance
powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61

Yup i didnt need to do any of of this other than run the code in CMD, ran benchmarks between the two modes, Same result, Checked settings individually, All the same, So if it doesn't perform the same if i change all the settings manually, Why can i change all the settings manually? My cpu is always set to run at 100%. Hard drives never turn off, Screens never turn off etc, So if all are the same, Is it lying to me that theyre not or..
I was gonna change to ultimate, But with all settings changed anyway, And everything performing the same, theres no need.
Monitored everything too to see if it didn't do or change the settings as i asked and nope, everything runs as it does on ultimate as it does on high if you change the settings.

spapakons · Nov 25, 2021

My Intel Core-i3 3770 runs at base frequency of 3.4GHz in High Performance plan and at 3.7GHz (turbo boost) in Ultimate Performance plan.

ShamrockRig · Nov 25, 2021

spapakons said:
My Intel Core-i3 3770 runs at base frequency of 3.4GHz in High Performance plan and at 3.7GHz (turbo boost) in Ultimate Performance plan.

Yeah im running 5.1 on all cores at all times on either high performance or ultimate plan.
3770? Isnt that an i7?

spapakons · Nov 25, 2021

Devlin1888 said:
Yeah im running 5.1 on all cores at all times on either high performance or ultimate plan.
3770? Isnt that an i7?

Yes, sorry, I previously had an i3 3220 and I upgraded to the i7 3770. My mistake.

jvickers · Nov 25, 2021

I went to the high performance plan as well instead of tweaking the plan I was on. My processor is running at a solid range of 4.0-4.2 GHz instead of the stock 3.6 GHz. It's keeping to a nice 42C with Winamp, Outlook, and Edge with 9 tabs open. I'll see how the performance is overall.

spapakons · Nov 25, 2021

You say Ultimate Performance plan might be a placebo (not actual improvement), but I enable that just in case.

jvickers · Nov 25, 2021

jvickers said:
I went to the high performance plan as well instead of tweaking the plan I was on. My processor is running at a solid range of 4.0-4.2 GHz instead of the stock 3.6 GHz. It's keeping to a nice 42C with Winamp, Outlook, and Edge with 9 tabs open. I'll see how the performance is overall.

Wait, I meant to say Ultimate Performance Plan. My bad...

Almighty1 · Nov 26, 2021

spapakons said:
To enable the Ultimate Performance plan right-click on start button and open a Windows terminal as Administrator. Then copy-paste this code:

Code:

powercfg -duplicatescheme e9a42b02-d5df-448d-aa00-03f14749eb61

Then go to Power settings and select this plan. I also set the screen to never switch off and of course the computer to never sleep so I can access it remotely with AnyDesk.

That code works but the Power Plan will only show up if the system is configured for S3 Sleep and not S0 Modern Standby which is what more recent BIOSes are pushing.

Almighty1 · Nov 26, 2021

Devlin1888 said:
Yup i didnt need to do any of of this other than run the code in CMD, ran benchmarks between the two modes, Same result, Checked settings individually, All the same, So if it doesn't perform the same if i change all the settings manually, Why can i change all the settings manually? My cpu is always set to run at 100%. Hard drives never turn off, Screens never turn off etc, So if all are the same, Is it lying to me that theyre not or..
I was gonna change to ultimate, But with all settings changed anyway, And everything performing the same, theres no need.
Monitored everything too to see if it didn't do or change the settings as i asked and nope, everything runs as it does on ultimate as it does on high if you change the settings.

Yes, that's because you are on a desktop or a system that still had S3 sleep supported in the BIOS while for those who have BIOSes that specify S0 Modern Sleep, the High Performance and Ultimate Performance power plans won't show up until you turn off the Modern Standby using the registry key. Google says that the Ultimate Performance Plan is really a placebo as they said the registry keys which stores the settings is identical when they modified their High Performance to Ultimate Plan settings so I don't really know because remember @spapakons did say that one has Turbo Boost always enabled and the other doesn't have that same option. It's hard to tell since even with my i8750H which is a 2.2Ghz CPU, it's doing 3.2Ghz on all 6 cores and not the 4.1Ghz turbo boost speeds. I normally don't mess with the built in plans but make a copy of it and then just modify the copy instead and I am pushing approximately 500 processes. Ofcourse this is a notebook and it could be the temperatures that is causing the throttling for all I know as unlike desktops, it's running between 80C-95C at all times.

spapakons · Nov 26, 2021

The Ultimate Performance plan is not recommended for notebooks because the battery drains much faster and the temperature rises too high. My maximum turbo speed is 3.9GHz but with the Ultimate Performance plan my Intel Core-i7 3770 currently works at 3.7GHz. I guess this is for protection from overheating since the average CPU temperature is 90 degrees Celsius. If I clean the dust and renew the thermal paste, might reach 3.9GHz Even at 3.7GHz is a great improvement over the base frequency of 3.4GHz. Unfortunately the guy that sold it to me kept the CPU fan, so I had to use my old Core-i3 3220 CPU fan which is not adequate for the i7.

Almighty1 · Nov 26, 2021

spapakons said:
The Ultimate Performance plan is not recommended for notebooks because the battery drains much faster and the temperature rises too high. My maximum turbo speed is 3.9GHz but with the Ultimate Performance plan my Intel Core-i7 3770 currently works at 3.7GHz. I guess this is for protection from overheating since the average CPU temperature is 90 degrees Celsius. If I clean the dust and renew the thermal paste, might reach 3.9GHz Even at 3.7GHz is a great improvement over the base frequency of 3.4GHz. Unfortunately the guy that sold it to me kept the CPU fan, so I had to use my old Core-i3 3220 CPU fan which is not adequate for the i7.

I rarely use my notebook beyond my table except maybe once a few years for days when traveling so Ultimate Performance is fine for now as I am using PC primary and rarely use the battery. As for the Turbo Boost speed, I thought the Turbo Boost speed listed in the specs is only when a single core is used but when multiple cores are used, the max speeds on each core is lower than the single core speed. With this notebook, people were hitting the same temps as I am even using the balanced power plan.

spapakons · Nov 26, 2021

Normally Turbo Boost is disabled and not used unless there is some resource-hungry application or game. If you force Turbo Boost always enabled, your computer becomes faster as if you would replace your CPU with a faster model. Also the Ultimate Performance plan avoids any delay and sleep and this also makes the computer faster.

ShamrockRig · Nov 26, 2021

spapakons said:
Normally Turbo Boost is disabled and not used unless there is some resource-hungry application or game. If you force Turbo Boost always enabled, your computer becomes faster as if you would replace your CPU with a faster model. Also the Ultimate Performance plan avoids any delay and sleep and this also makes the computer faster.

My cpu came with turbo enabled off the bat and to be fair, ive never had one come with it being defaulted to off, I think this depends on if youre running the power saver plan.
Same with my 6600k and my brothers 8700k,
Depends on the cpu of course too but im gonna say if it has turbo, its enabled by default at the cpu end, If you run a power saving or balanced plan i can see why it might turn turbo off.

spapakons · Nov 26, 2021

I meant to say that the turbo is enabled but not engaged all the time, only when needed. Ultimate Power plan makes turbo boost active non-stop, needed or not (even when the computer is idle).

Dch48 · Jan 7, 2022

You will really only notice a difference if you only have integrated graphics. Dual channel really improves integrated GPU performance. With a dedicated GPU, it doesn't matter much since the GPU has it's own VRAM and doesn't use system memory. In basic usage of the computer, you can see a difference in benchmarks but probably won't notice it in real time use.

Dch48 · Jan 7, 2022

Berton said:
I had an HP Notebook from several years ago with 6GB RAM, 1 x 4GB and 1 x 2GB, from the factory it was set for dual-channel, worked good, granddaughter has it now.

I have a 2011 HP notebook that came the same way. I did eventually replace the 2gb stick with another 4gb but it worked fine in the original configuration. It's the HP dv6-6140US model with the first generation AMD APU called Llano.

spapakons · Jan 7, 2022

Nowadays RAM is too fast to notice any difference between single channel and dual channel configuration. In the first DDR modules the difference was more obvious. Even if the difference is small, why not.

Is 2 x 8 GB RAM faster than 1 x 16 GB RAM ?

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