Hi folks, There are 3 channel DDR-3 RAM kits available on market. Would its performance be better than dual channel RAM kit, apart from RAM capacity? I'm planning to build a new box testing server consolidation on virtualizaion running Xen/Vserver/OpenVZ as software. All servers running 64bit Linux OS. My new planning is to get 2 sets DDR-3 1333/1600 4Gx2 kit. I may consider 3 channel kit dropping the total RAM capacity to 6G if it has better performance. Please shed me some light. TIA Besides can mobo support dual channel RAM also allowing 3 channel RAM to work on it without sacrifying performance? B.R. satimis

Triple-channel RAM doesn't give desktop applications much of a boost (around 5% is what I've read). However, servers that can take advantage of additional memory bandwidth should receive a much larger increase in performance. I'd go with the triple-channel/6GB setup, then upgrade to 12GB later on. Yes, Core i7/Xeon motherboards that support triple-channel memory can also run in dual-channel (and even single-channel) mode. The HTPC: Pentium M oc'ed to 2.82GHz, 667FSB, 2MB L2 3GB of DDR-800 @ 667MHz GeForce 9600GT Blu-Ray Vista Modified PowerMac G4 'Quicksilver' case HDMI to homebuilt 1080p projector

Hi jackbomb, Thanks for your advice. Unless getting a server mobo there will be no spare slots taking further 3 ram sticks. I'll build this new box for testing purpose NOT for production. Therefore I won't purchase a server mobo for its use. I'll keep your advice for building production server. Thanks satimis