CompTIA A+ Core 1 (220-1201)HardwareMedium
A technician is configuring a custom PC build for a video editor. The motherboard has four RAM slots. To maximize memory bandwidth and performance, the technician should recommend installing RAM modules in which configuration?
- ADual-channel mode with two matching modules.
- BQuad-channel mode with four matching modules.
- CSingle-channel mode with one large module.
- DTriple-channel mode with three matching modules.
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: A. Dual-channel mode with two matching modules.
Most consumer motherboards and CPUs support dual-channel memory, which doubles the memory bandwidth by allowing the memory controller to access two RAM modules simultaneously. With four slots, installing two matching modules in the correct paired slots (often indicated by color) will enable dual-channel operation and provide a significant performance boost over single-channel. Quad-channel is typically found on high-end desktop (HEDT) and server platforms, and triple-channel is rare now.
Why the other options are wrong
- B. Quad-channel memory requires a specific CPU and motherboard (typically HEDT/server platforms) and usually requires eight RAM slots to fully utilize, not a standard four-slot consumer board.
- C. Single-channel mode offers the lowest memory bandwidth and would be detrimental to performance for a video editing workstation.
- D. Triple-channel memory is an older and less common architecture, not typically found on modern consumer motherboards with four slots.
Dual-Channel Memory
A memory architecture that doubles the data bandwidth by allowing the memory controller to access two memory modules simultaneously.
- Requires two (or four) identical RAM modules.
- Modules must be installed in specific, paired slots (often color-coded).
- Significantly improves performance for memory-intensive tasks.
Memory trick: Channels Carry Computing Capacity Clearly.