What does it mean by triple channel in the new ddr3?

To understand Triple Channel, lets go back to regular RAM, like SDRAM.

Lets say we have an SDRAM chip thats clocked at 200Mhz, this is pretty fine for back when SDRAM was around.

Now lets say we have a DDR stick thats clocked at 100Mhz, but is labeled as 200Mhz.

This means that the DDR is sending data on the rising AND falling edge of the clock cycle, so it's doing twice as much each clock cycle compared to the old SDRAM.

When DDR2 came around, they doubled it yet again, even if the clock cycle was 200Mhz, they were sending 4 times as much each clock cycle than SDRAM. Or twice as much as DDR (thus the '2' in DDR2).

When DDR3 came around, they send even more! Why are they doing it this way instead of increasing the actual operating frequency? The answer is, it's not that easy. It's not impossible, but the cost of a RAM chip costs more as the clock frequency goes up. But, the RAM speed has to be as close to the CPU speed as possible or the CPU is going to sit around waiting for the data from the RAM. As you can imagine, this is a problem.

So how do you make the speed of the RAM go up, to keep up with the CPU's Frequency (which keeps getting higher these days) without increasing the acutal frequency?

You send more per clock cycle! Thats why it's called double data rate or DDR.

Check out this Wiki article on Dual Channel and it will help you more understand Triple Channel. --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-channel_architec...

Edit: Ok, three memory sticks would normally share the same channel to talk to the CPU, this means when one is talking the others have to wait. Dual Channel lets two talk at once without waiting, three means that three can talk at the same time without waiting.

Hope that helps :)