[adrian_b]

One should no longer use the word "channel" because the width of a channel differs between various kinds of memories, even among those that can be used with the same CPU (e.g. between DDR and LPDDR or between DDR4 and DDR5).

For instance, now the majority of desktops with DDR5 have 4 channels, not 2 channels, but the channels are narrower, so the width of the memory interface is the same as before.

To avoid ambiguities, one should always write the width of the memory interface.

Most desktop computers and laptop computers have 128-bit memory interfaces.

The cheapest desktop computers and laptop computers, e.g. those with Intel Alder Lake N/Twin Lake CPUs, and also many smartphones and Arm-based SBCs, have 64-bit memory interfaces.

Cheaper smartphones and Arm-based SBCs have 32-bit memory interfaces.

Strix Halo and many older workstations and many cheaper servers have 256-bit memory interfaces.

High-end servers and workstations have 768-bit or 512-bit memory interfaces.

It is expected that future high-end servers will have 1024-bit memory interfaces per socket.

GPUs with private memory have usually memory interfaces between 192-bit and 1024-bit, but newer consumer GPUs have usually narrower memory interfaces than older consumer GPUs, to reduce cost. The narrower memory interface is compensated by faster memories, so the available bandwidth in consumer GPUs has been increased much slower than the increase in GDDR memory speed would have allowed.

[fluoridation]

>now the majority of desktops with DDR5 have 4 channels, not 2 channels

Source? I just looked up two random X870E boards from Gigabyte and both are dual channel.

>To avoid ambiguities, one should always write the width of the memory interface.

They're incomparable quantities. More channels support more parallel operations, while a wider bus at a constant frequency supports higher throughput.

The bus width is not even that useful of a metric. It's more useful to talk about bits per second, which is the product of bus width and frequency.

[sliken]

Sadly motherboards, tech journalist, and many other places confuse the difference between a dimm and channel. The trick is the DDR4 generation they were the same, 64 bits wide. However a standard DDR5 dimm is not 1x64 bit, it's actually 2x32 bit. Thus 2 DDR5 dimms = 4 channels.

For some workloads the extra channels help, despite having the same bandwidth. This is one of the reasons that it's possible for a DDR5 system to be slightly faster than a DDR4 system, even if the memory runs at the same speed.

[fluoridation]

>However a standard DDR5 dimm is not 1x64 bit, it's actually 2x32 bit. Thus 2 DDR5 dimms = 4 channels.

Uh, surely that depends on how the motherboard is wired. Just because each DIMM has half the pins on one channel and the other half on another, doesn't mean 2 DIMM = 4 channels. It could just be that the top pins over all the DIMMs are on one channel and the bottom ones are on another.

[sliken]

I think there's a standard wiring for the dimm and some parts are shared. Each normal ddr5 dimm has 2 sub channels that are 32 bits each, and the new specification for the HUDIMM which will only enable 1 sub channel and only have half the bandwidth.

I don't think you can wire up DDR5 dimms willy nilly as if they were 2 separate 32 bit dimms.

[fluoridation]

Well, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not a computer engineer, but I assume Gigabyte has at least a few of those, and they're labeling the X870E boards with 4 DIMMS as "dual channel". I feel like if they were actually quad channel they'd jump at the chance to put a bigger number, so I'm compelled to trust the specs.

[sliken]

In computer manufacture speak dual channel = 2 x 64 bit = 128 bits wide.

So with 2 dimms or 4 you still get 128 bit wide memory. With DDR4 that means 2 channels x 64 bit each. With DDR5 that means 4 channels x 32 bit each.

Keep in mind that memory controller is in the CPU, which is where the DDR4/5 memory controller is. The motherboards job is to connect the right pins on the DIMMs to the right pins on the CPU socket. The days of a off chip memory controller/north bridge are long gone.

So if you look at an AM5 CPU it clearly states:

   * Memory Type: DDR5-only (no DDR4 compatibility).

   * Channels: 2 Channel (Dual-Channel).

   * Memory Width: 2x32-bit sub-channels (128-bit total for 2 sticks).