Dell Latitude D610 Review - Page 9

The reason I ask whether or not I can mix and match is because of this article at Tom's Hardware: http://www20.tomshardware.com/mobile...alviso-04.html

Dual channel mode will work as long as there are two sticks of RAM of identical in size, speed, latency, but I seriously doubt they have to be of the same brand. You won't probably notice the difference though.

But dual channel capable systems (esp. D610) SHOULD work in both single and dual channel mode provided the right memory is inserted, right?

The way I interpreted that article, they are saying that systems are designed to work ONLY in single or dual channel mode and will not switch between the two.

As long as somebody has tried mixing and matching in the D610, I'm not concerned.

Yes, designed for both modes.

Can't tell you that for sure right now but I'm betting it's all good - dell systems are pretty standard. Planning to get the d610 in the future to eventually replace my beloved d600.

I think I'll give it a go when I get the D610 later this week. I'll report on it.

I really don't think that the D610 has dual channel memory. I have one 512 DIMM installed and one 1gig DIMM installed and it says it has Dual channel in the BIOS.



Before I put in the 1gig upgrade, with only the single 512 chip installed it still said it had dual channel enabled. So unless it's doing dual channel inside each DIMM individually I don't see it being possible. Now I admit that I haven't really read up to much on DDR2 but I don't think I could have missed the ability to run dual channel inside one DIMM? More likely is the BIOS is reporting this wrong.

Interestingly enough Dual channel is listed as a feature of the chipset:

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/915pm/

Very interesting. Any other D610 owners able to confirm this?

MaxBurn: what BIOS version are you using?

A03 BIOS

Some strange things reported in both CPUz and Everest, looks like the chipset isn't suported by either yet so we don't really know what's going on yet.

Just to clarify, you mixed and matched two different sticks of memory and it worked fine?

Yes it runs fine, no instability and I noticed a big difference so the extra memory really helps out. The stuff Dell supplied is Hynix HYMP564S646-C4 512MB 533Mhz and I got some Kingmax KSBD48F-A8EB4-ECA 1Gig 533Mhz off ebay pretty cheap. The RAS timing was one lower than the Hynix Dell supplied but the rest of the timings were identical, so it's not posing a problem.

What I really want an answer to is did Dell implement dual channel memory for the D610 and what are the requirements to get it working? I would suggest you have to have two identical (timing wise, maybe even part number) DIMM's installed and then probably turn something on in the BIOS like you do with desktop systems. This apparently static indicator in the BIOS that indicates dual channel I would suggest isn't telling us anything.

Big question:

Does anyones BIOS For the D610 say they are in SINGLE channel mode or maybe say OFF instead of DUAL? I am willing to bet not....

Why dont you guys do the sisoftsandra memory bandwith test to see for sure if its dual channel.....

Dell D610 P-M760 2.0Ghz 533FSB with mismatched DIMMS, one 512 and one 1Gig as above posts.

SiSoftware Sandra - Memory Bandwidth

Benchmark Results
RAM Bandwidth Int Buff'd iSSE2 : 2940 MB/s
RAM Bandwidth Float Buff'd iSSE2 : 2946 MB/s

Int Buff'd iSSE2 (Integer STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 2934MB/s
Scaling : 2915MB/s
Addition : 2951MB/s
Triad : 2960MB/s
Data Item Size : 16 byte(s)
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 69% (estimated)

Float Buff'd iSSE2 (Float STREAM) Results Breakdown
Assignment : 2923MB/s
Scaling : 2929MB/s
Addition : 2972MB/s
Triad : 2962MB/s
Data Item Size : 16 byte(s)
Buffering Used : Yes
Offset Displacement Used : Yes
Bandwidth Efficiency : 69% (estimated)

Performance Test Status
Run ID : D610 on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 at 5:57:51 PM
Memory Used by Test : 512MB
NUMA Support : No
SMP Test : No
Total Test Threads : 1
Multi-Core Test : No
SMT Test : No
Dynamic MP/MT Load Balance : No
Processor Affinity : PP0
Page Size : 4kB
Use Large Memory Pages : No

Chipset 1
Model : Dell Computer Corp ??? (2590)
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 133MHz (532MHz data rate)
Width : 64-bit
Maximum Bus Bandwidth : 4256MB/s (estimated)

Logical/Chipset 1 Memory Banks
Bank 0 : 512MB DDR2-SDRAM 4.0-4-4-12 1CMD
Bank 1 : 512MB DDR2-SDRAM 4.0-4-4-12 1CMD
Bank 4 : 256MB DDR2-SDRAM 4.0-4-4-12 1CMD
Bank 5 : 256MB DDR2-SDRAM 4.0-4-4-12 1CMD
Channels : 1
Speed : 4x 266MHz (1064MHz data rate)
Width : 64-bit
Maximum Memory Bus Bandwidth : 8512MB/s (estimated)

Features
(W)MMX Technology : Yes
SSE Technology : Yes
SSE2 Technology : Yes
SSE3 Technology : No
EMMX - Extended MMX Technology : No
HTT - Hyper-Threading Technology : No



SiSoftware Sandra - Memory Latency

Benchmark Results
Combined Index : 5306 MB/s
Speed Factor : 13.9
2kB Blocks : 19674 MB/s
4kB Blocks : 20310 MB/s
8kB Blocks : 20382 MB/s
16kB Blocks : 20521 MB/s
32kB Blocks : 19176 MB/s
64kB Blocks : 10051 MB/s
128kB Blocks : 9837 MB/s
256kB Blocks : 9862 MB/s
512kB Blocks : 9848 MB/s
1MB Blocks : 9840 MB/s
4MB Blocks : 2349 MB/s
16MB Blocks : 1486 MB/s
64MB Blocks : 1507 MB/s
256MB Blocks : 1475 MB/s

Float SSE2 Cache/Memory Results Breakdown
Data Item Size : 16 byte(s)
Buffering Used : No
Offset Displacement Used : Yes

Performance Test Status
Run ID : D610 on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 at 6:02:45 PM
NUMA Support : No
SMP Test : No
Total Test Threads : 1
Multi-Core Test : No
SMT Test : No
Dynamic MP/MT Load Balance : No
Processor Affinity : PP0
Page Size : 4kB
Use Large Memory Pages : No

Processor
Model : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 2.00GHz
Speed : 2.00GHz
Performance Rating : PR2394 (estimated)
Type : Mobile
Internal Data Cache : 32kB Synchronous, Write-Back, 8-way set, 64 byte line size
L2 On-board Cache : 2MB ECC Synchronous, ATC, 8-way set, 64 byte line size

Features
SSE Technology : Yes
SSE2 Technology : Yes
SSE3 Technology : No
EMMX - Extended MMX Technology : No
HTT - Hyper-Threading Technology : No

Chipset 1
Model : Dell Computer Corp ??? (2590)
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 133MHz (532MHz data rate)
Width : 64-bit
Maximum Bus Bandwidth : 4256MB/s (estimated)

Logical/Chipset 1 Memory Banks
Bank 0 : 512MB DDR2-SDRAM 4.0-4-4-12 1CMD
Bank 1 : 512MB DDR2-SDRAM 4.0-4-4-12 1CMD
Bank 4 : 256MB DDR2-SDRAM 4.0-4-4-12 1CMD
Bank 5 : 256MB DDR2-SDRAM 4.0-4-4-12 1CMD
Channels : 1
Speed : 4x 266MHz (1064MHz data rate)
Width : 64-bit
Maximum Memory Bus Bandwidth : 8512MB/s (estimated)

I wouldn't limit this just to the D610. The newer systems have a similarly designed BIOS so might as well ask them too.

A simple yes or no would do.

I have nothing to compare to and nor do I have a matched set of DIMM's, so hopefully someone with matched DIMM's and similar spec's can post their results.

If there proves a significant benefit by matching the memory up then I will definately think about matching mine up.

What's interesting is this part:

Maximum Bus Bandwidth : 4256MB/s (estimated)
...
Channels : 1
Maximum Memory Bus Bandwidth : 8512MB/s (estimated)


The first one is the maximum bandwidth of the CPU/chipset bus combo (I think...), and the second one is the maximum bandwidth of the memory bus. The first doesn't really relate to memory channels at all but the second one is indicative of a dual channel DDR2 533MHz system. However, it also says "Channels: 1", so I'm confused.

I was thinking maybe it's dual channeling within each DIMMs because it's recognising them in different banks even though they are physically the same DIMM.

But notice how it messed up on the memory speed:

Speed : 4x 266MHz (1064MHz data rate)

If it used that in the calculation for estimated bandwidth then it's going to be way off.

So add sisoft to the list of software that can't decipher what's goin on inside these notebooks. Wonder what's so radically different about this chipset, it's been out for some time now.

CPU looks right though:

Processor
Model : Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 2.00GHz
Speed : 2.00GHz
Front Side Bus Speed : 4x 133MHz (532MHz data rate)
Width : 64-bit
Maximum Bus Bandwidth : 4256MB/s (estimated)

But if it IS dual channel, shouldn't it really be 2x533MHz=1064MHz?

So it could be right...?

No one with matched memory wants to benchmark? Aren't you curious?

Hey dude, can you post more pictures of the BIOS please? I am really interested on it.

It's the inverter (turns direct into altern current). It is not very efficient and the energy is dissipated as heat. All modern flat pannels need it because they need altern, high voltage current to turn on the fluorecent tube inside the screen (backlight).