ram for vista

[repo485]

If i purchase a 64 bit operating system, will it recognize under 4 GB of RAM or is the minimum 4?

 

[oscaryu1]

32Bit OS - 3.25GB Max

64Bit OS - 128GB Max

 

[repo485]

But if I purchase the 64 bit operating system can i use less than 4 gb of ram?

 

[oscaryu1]

Yes... You can use 1MB for all it cares. It's just coded to utilize more than 3.25GB of memory...

 

[repo485]

ok thank you

 

[Geoff]

But if I purchase the 64 bit operating system can i use less than 4 gb of ram?

Yes.

 

[nyhk]

32Bit OS - 3.25GB Max

64Bit OS - 128GB Max

It should be

32Bit OS - 4GB
64Bit OS - 128GB

Or

32Bit OS - 4GB minus MMIO
64Bit OS - 128GB minus MMIO

 

[oscaryu1]

MMIO?

3.25GB is the MAXIMUM for ALL 32bit OSes. Wanna make a thread about it? Cause I didn't make this up myself

 

[tyttebøvs]

MMIO stands for Memory Mapped I/O. The "other" hardware in the pc which takes up addresses. In 32-bit, without PAE, there are 2^32 addresses which can point to 4GB of whatever

 

[tyttebøvs]

I mentioned PAE, this is a feature of the 32-bit processor which allows the OS to make use of the entire address bus, 2^36 = 64G

 

[Gareth]

MMIO?

3.25GB is the MAXIMUM for ALL 32bit OSes. Wanna make a thread about it? Cause I didn't make this up myself

Windows XP Home, on my main desktop, can see 3.51GB of RAM (I dual boot).

 

[oscaryu1]

Hmm... interesting... Everyone has different numbers... Ah well. Thanks for your input.

 

[Gareth]

Yes, I believe it is to do with your motherboard and video card, caching and some other memory stuff.

 

[oscaryu1]

All we can determine is that without a x64 bit OS, you won't utilize all 4GB of your memory...