4GB < ?

[GoldenbanjoDJ]

just a quick question for someone more in the know than me

can i put more than 4GB RAM into my motherboard to make a noticable difference?

my motherboard is for AMD chipsets: Crosshair iii formula with AMD Phenom ii x4 955 @ 3.8ghz. I have 2 sticks of corsair xms 2GB RAM in at the minute

sorry if it's a stupid q!

 

[hmmblah]

Depends what you are using the PC for. If you just game and do general browsing, you won't notice any difference.

 

[ionicle]

and depends on your OS

X86 takes a max of 3. ...somthing

x64 takes a lot more, but it will be limited by your board

 

[Aurus_OC]

and depends on your OS

X86 takes a max of 3. ...somthing

x64 takes a lot more, but it will be limited by your board

x64 limit will be 16gb on the formula. (I think overall limit of x64 is 192GB, but that's way off) But like hmmblah said it all depends on what you are using your computer for. For gaming and browsing and office stuff four gigs will be enough. If you are doing a lot of video editing, or other memory intensive things you will see an improvement. The best way to check whether you need more memory or not is to load up a current usage session (doing what you normally do with your computer) and have a look at the good old task manager in case of your memory usage if it doesn't go up to more than 80 or 90% you don't need more ram.

The big think with memory in my opinion are timings and frequencies. You should always look for low timings and high frequencies, because that determines how quick your memory is accesible and how quick the writing and reading of it will be.

 

[Xochielt]

I think overall limit of x64 is 192GB

2^64... 16EB ( exabyte... after petabyte which comes after

terabyte which comes after gigabyte )

So - in future the main limiting factor will be the mainboard

 

[hmmblah]

Depends on the version of your x64 Windows too. MS has artificial limits on each version. Server 2008 R2 x64 Standard for example has a 32GB limit. I'm sure these same kind of limits apply to Win7. /goes to google

Edit:

Pro, Enterprise and Ultimate have a 192GB limit. Home Prem. is 16GB, Home Basic 8GB, and Win7 starter is 2GB.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_7

 

[Xochielt]

Depends on the version of your x64 Windows too. MS has artificial limits on each version. Server 2008 R2 x64 Standard for example has a 32GB limit. I'm sure these same kind of limits apply to Win7. /goes to google

Edit:

Pro, Enterprise and Ultimate have a 192GB limit. Home Prem. is 16GB, Home Basic 8GB, and Win7 starter is 2GB.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx#physical_memory_limits_windows_7

I never mentioned something like Microsoft Windows or any other

OS. Aurus didn't mention one either. I just said, that x64

( which says how width the address bus is ) supports up to

16EB, and not 192GB. Your post was the first one which

mentioned a special OS

 

[hmmblah]

I never mentioned something like Microsoft Windows or any other

OS. Aurus didn't mention one either. I just said, that x64

( which says how width the address bus is ) supports up to

16EB, and not 192GB. Your post was the first one which

mentioned a special OS

C'mon now. The majority of users here are on Windows so what I said applies to them. Someone here with a gaming rig probably cares more about what their set up can run then some server running Solaris or AIX

.

Also, who cares what the hardware supports if you don't have an OS that can use the hardware

.

 

[Aurus_OC]

Well I meant the Windows limitations. But well that is going to be a while before we reach 192 GB nevermind 16EB. But hey we reched more than x86 can support, so there is going a day in which we will all have 16EB of memory. Ok, now I need to stop dreaming. ("64Kb ought to be enough ram for anybody")

. I guess it's to bad nobody can tell what the future has to offer.

 

[GoldenbanjoDJ]

excellent - looks like i have enough

thanks for all your help and advice! i think my RAM is pretty decent in terms of frequency and timing and i game and browse so should be fine with just the 4GB

 

[Enzo.]

and depends on your OS

X86 takes a max of 3. ...somthing

x64 takes a lot more, but it will be limited by your board

X86 3.25 gb ^^