Thinkpads Forum

Hi, I just bought a AXIOM 1gb pc5300 for lenovo thinkpad series from DELL.com. The problem is that the ram I got is not the same as show in the website:

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... u=A1279204

The original 1gb ram came with the laptop is exactly the same look as shown in the link(FOUR chips). But dell shipped a different kind ram with EIGHT chips on it.

Can I still get dual channel with two rams with different number of chips? Even they are both 1gb 5300. I heard that you have to have the same number of chips to get dual channel.

I used cpu-z to test the system and It showed that I got dual channel. Is the result reliable? Is there anyway else I can check the dual channel directly from the system?

Thanks.

cpu-z is correct. The memory controller on the T6X machines is capable of running Dual-Channel Asymmetric. The memory controller works in this mode when you have different capacity/density memory modules on each channel. With that said, all dual-channel modes are highly overrated. You're not going to notice a difference in system performance in real world day to day use. You would only see a difference in a memory benchmark.

harryc, do you mean that even I have 1g+2g in my T60, the system can still run in dual channel Asymmetric? If that is the case, I probably will return the 1g and get a 2g ram, since the price are almost the same if I got a deal.

Yes, that is correct.

Thanks, harryc, should have checked this forum before I updated the rams.

This is one of the best forums i even been. all my questions got answered quickly. -0-

I'm running 3GB in my T60 and it's running in asymmetric dual channel mode according to CPU-Z.

After the upgrade, the greatest increase in performance did not come from dual channel mode but rather from the extra 2GB of RAM which means the laptop doesn't have to muck about with a slow page file on the HDD. Not having to rely on the page file is where all of the performance comes from.