When upgrading or assembling a new computer, in addition to memory capacity, many people must also wonder, is there a big difference between single channel, dual channel, or even four channel with the same capacity? If you mainly play games, the actual test videos of Qianzhenzi’s foreign YouTube channel should be a good reference for you, and they are compiled below.
Actual measurement of game performance of single-channel, dual-channel and four-channel 16GB memory. Is there a big impact?
The foreign YouTube channel Ancient Gameplays recently conducted a game performance test on single-channel, dual-channel, and four-channel memory. They used 16GB memory as an example, which means 16GB single-channel, 2x8GB dual-channel, and 4x4GB four-channel. In theory, the more channels you have, the greater the bandwidth you will get. For example, if a single channel is 40Gb/s, four channels will come to 160Gb/s, does that mean better game performance? Not so:
The first thing you need to know is that most CPUs from Intel and AMD only support single-channel and dual-channel. The four-channel part only supports the Intel Xeon series and AMD Threadripper Pro series, so it is basically unusable for ordinary players.
The test platform they used is as follows. The processor is AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, the motherboard ASUS X570 Strix-F, the graphics card RX 6800, and the power supply Corsair RM750X 750W (Gold):
Ancient Gameplays tests many games, and I will compile a few here. For the complete content, please watch the video at the end of the article.
The first one is “Assassin’s Creed: Viking Age”. This one is quite special. Under 1080p, I didn’t expect that 2x8GB performed best, reaching 132.1. 1x16GB and 4x4GB were about the same. The same goes for 1440P, 4x4GB has the worst performance, but the gap is only 2~3FPS:
“Cyberpunk 2077” is relatively normal. 4x4GB performs best. No matter which resolution it is, the difference is within 1 FPS. You will not feel the difference at all when playing:
“Forza Horizon 5” also performs best in 4x4GB, especially in 1080p resolution:
“Horizon: Zero Dawn” performed best with 2x8GB, with an average FPS of 159.7 in 1080p, 159.4 FPS in 4x4GB, and 156.1 FPS in 1x16GB:
In “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds”, 4x4GB performs best, and the gap is most obvious in 1080p resolution. Others are fine:
“Fortress Heroes” is also quite special. 1x16GB beats 2x8GB in 1080p, 1440P and 1440P UW settings, and the best performance is 4x4GB:
“Lost Ark” also has the best average FPS with 4x4GB, and the difference between 1080P and 1440P is quite obvious:
So overall, you might think that four-channel looks best, which is true in terms of data, but be aware that, as mentioned earlier, most consumer processors only support single-channel and dual-channel, which means that if you want four-channel, you can only buy an enterprise-level processor. It makes no sense to buy an enterprise-grade one for playing games, and it is also difficult to upgrade in the future. The more channels there are, the more difficult it is to overclock. Therefore, Ancient Gameplays recommends just buying dual channels.
Full video:
Source: KOCPC Chinese