Big Ram ???

[Ironcat]

My motherboard has 4 RAM slots and it can hold up to 8Gb of RAM which means that each of these slots can handle a 2Gb chip.
I know that Windows only lets me use 3Gb (or is it 4?) but I'd like to be futureproofed for the day when Windows is worth buying.
I can't find these 2Gb chips anywhere... any ideas where to look?

[Airbozo]

Newegg?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=2gb+dimm&x=0&y=0

[Spawn-Inc]

thats would be all fine but what about when your motherboard is old!? hell i feel my 680i board is starting to age with the new p35 and x38 chipsets.

just go with 4gb's, my copy of 32bit xp home only see's 2.75gb's, i was told around 3.2 or so.

[Airbozo]

My striker board will not even post with all 4gb in unless I upgrade the bios (this weekend) and if I put 3 in, it gets slower since it is not in dual channel mode anymore...

If you really want to see all of that ram, reduce the size of the page file (YMMV) to zero (don't remember if windows lets you do this) and reboot.

[Spawn-Inc]

interesting, i do have my set to 10gb.

[Airbozo]

From what I remember (from windows 98 ), the total amount that Windows can see is 4gb. This includes the first 1.5gb of the page file (again if I remember right). I did this trick on my win98 machines and it worked fine. I really did not benchmark it to see if the system was faster or slower. There used to be issues with windows if you set the page file below 512mb, but that was fixed in win95. Now you have me curious and this weekend after updating my bios, I will try this out to see if it work NAD i will do some simple benchmarks to see if there is any difference.

It is kind of odd that I learned about page files with UNIX and the rule of thumb at the time was that the page file _should_ be at least 2x memory size. (page files in UNIX are where the OS throws data/programs that are not needed while the system runs another more important program) Later on I also learned that when using page files (or swap files), it is an indication of the need to upgrade the memory since you want as little paging/swapping as possible for the best performance. I have a book written on UNIX performance tuning and half of it deals with swapping.

[Omega]

The restirction isn't because of Windows. It's because a 32bit OS can't use more than 2.75gb properly. Get XP x64 or Vista x64 and wham, there's your 4gbs.

[a.Bird]

What's happening in the x64 world these days? I was just using my mother's computer the other day and trying to download iTunes for her into Vista Ultimate 64-bit and it wasn't very stable. I came to find out that Apple, to this day, does not release full x64 support for iTunes. Not that I really care personally, but for someone like my mother, I'd prefer to set her up with some stable commercial software with a simple-enough interface.

[XcOM]

true to an extent, 32bit can only address 4gb, but don't forget it has to map your gfx mnemory, your pci lines take memory, cache in hdd's gets mapped, this all gets taken away from the 4gb

[D1337]

What's happening in the x64 world these days? I was just using my mother's computer the other day and trying to download iTunes for her into Vista Ultimate 64-bit and it wasn't very stable. I came to find out that Apple, to this day, does not release full x64 support for iTunes. Not that I really care personally, but for someone like my mother, I'd prefer to set her up with some stable commercial software with a simple-enough interface.

Why in the world would you give someone who struggles to use a basic computer(most parents) a machine running on 64-bit?

[simon275]

Why in the world would you give someone who struggles to use a basic computer(most parents) a machine running on 64-bit?

A lot of stores did the wrong thing and installed 64bit computers on mom on pop computers just so they could actually sell the damm thing.

[luciusad2004]

Whats wrong with 64 bit that makes it unusable for mom and pop? In theory if the programs being run were up to snuff i don't see why it should be any different. XP vs XP 64 bit edition should still be windows and work in the same manner. If there is a problem with 64 bit processors i would blame developers.

This post was more of a question than a statement to be honest. I have no clue what I'm talking about.

Edit: By developers i meant software developers, not hardware developers. It seems that on the software/driver side 64 bit is being left out. (at least, last time i cared to look that is)