Originally posted by coder
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When going for a high-end machine with really large RAM sticks, only the best fabs can make really large RAM chips. And these fabs have a limited capacity. So there is a premium price for the chips besides just the extra because they are larger.
This means that if I buy a server motherboard with 8 RAM slots, it costs more if I go for 4 silly large RAM sticks or if I go for 8 sticks that are half the size each. So I can either decide to pay premium, and later add 4 more modules. Or go the cheaper route and later have to throw away 8 sticks to replace with 8 larger sticks. So for high-end hardware, it isn't an extra cost to make us of all memory channels.
But when moving down to smaller RAM modules, the mechanical cost starts to matter. It takes more time in the factory to make two 4 GB sticks than one 8 GB stick. So at the smaller end of memories, there is a very real reason why a single, twice-as-large, stick is cheaper than two smaller sticks.
So it isn't an arbitrary choice to be evil, that we see single-channel deliveries in lower range products. It really does affect the price of the product. And the price is a very important factor for the lower range products - either because the customer can't afford more, or the product is intended for a huge mass-market. 1 million kiosk installations means $5 difference per installation is a $5 million saving.
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