Feasible upgrade?

[pr0phetik_dreamz]

Dual channel helps for DDR2. Multiple RAM channels basically increases memory bandwidth - imagine it like expanding a two lane highway to four lanes. The data won't move any faster but "more" can move at the same time thus increasing your bandwidth which serves up data to the CPU and GPU faster. In the end though the CPU/GPU is bottlenecked by the RAM speed and bandwidth, which in turn is bottlenecked by the storage media (hard drive, SSD, optical drive, etc).

Multi-channel memory *should* work in theory even if the RAM stick PCBs and chips are different manufacturers. A RAM manufacturer like GSkill or Corsair will build/buy their PCBs and populate it with RAM chips from another manufacturer like Samsung, Hynix, or Elpida. AFAIK only Crucial (Micron) makes their own PCBs and RAM chips in house. Multi-channeling will still work as long as the PCB + chips are rated to run at the same voltage, speed, and memory timings. But obviously matching everything up is a lot harder the more contributing factors are different... and keep in mind that manufacturers might be using different PCBs or RAM chips even in the same series of RAM sticks, but never would use different components in the same SKU. So as long as your SKU/part number and revision is the same you should be OK. Otherwise if the right DIMMs are populated your mobo will still attempt to run in multi-channel by use the highest denominator voltages, timings, and speed (basically it'll default to the slowest stick). If that can't be done then it drops down to single-channel

[Wolfgang]

Hrm, I might go back and try to get it working again, then. I've not checked the SKUs or revisions - I bought the sticks one at a time over a few months from the local circuit city before it closed, which I don't plan to do again. I know the 2gb sticks had higher timings than the 1gb sticks, but I figured the slowing down would be outweighed by the increase from 2gb to 6gb. I had the two 1gb sticks running dual channel, tried just the two 2gb sticks and it wouldn't show them running dual channel.
EDIT: As it turns out, running in unganged mode won't let the memory be run in dual channel mode, at least not on this motherboard. I never bothered to switch to ganged mode, as I wasn't sure what it did, but I might go do that now.