Ram Memory banks used.

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I was wondering how the CPU is using memory banks and stick from another point of view.

For example if i have 4 stick of 16 GB of RAM (a total of 64 GB of RAM) and windows is using only 6 GB RAM does only 1 stick of RAM is used and others are in an idle state.

OR every memory stick is used and data is spread around all memory sticks and banks.

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3 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

It will depend on what type of memory controller your motherboard has.

Older computers and lower powered devices have single channel memory. The limit on memory speed in this case is the bus between the processor and the RAM, so how it is divided between individual modules is irrelevant. Multi-channel memory connects multiple groups of RAM on more than one bus to increase overall speed. However even systems capable more than one channel may fall back to single channel performance if the type of memory sticks do not match each other.

Most current computers use dual channel memory controllers. On a system with four memory modules it will put two pairs in each channel. So it will use at least two of the modules. There would be no speed difference between using one on each channel or both on each channel.

If you have quad channel memory it will use each module as a channel and divide the load over all four.

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