Originally posted by: sm8000
A 32-bit system gives you 2^32 (4GB) of total address space. If you put in 4GB of RAM, some of it will be reserved for hardware address space, such as PC & PCI-E subsystems, AGP aperture, and a shadow copy of video RAM.
This is why you need 64-bit hardware and a 64 bit OS, such as "win xp 64 bit."
fzkl, what are your system's hardware specs? You might be able to regain some of that lost RAM by lowering your AGP aperture. If you have SLI video cards, take one out.
Originally posted by: Crusader
If you dont game, and need 4GB for other tasks.. I would assume you'd have a much more powerful PC than you do and are a true professional (work at Oracle/IBM/MS/SAP/places like that).
Originally posted by: TonyB
when it comes to hardware talks amung enthusiasts, more memory means a bigger e-peen. so yes. get as much ram as you can. 4GB is small now, 32GB is where its at. 16 x 2GB sticks woot!
Originally posted by: sm8000
fzkl, what are your system's hardware specs? You might be able to regain some of that lost RAM by lowering your AGP aperture. If you have SLI video cards, take one out.
Originally posted by: Looney
Originally posted by: sm8000
fzkl, what are your system's hardware specs? You might be able to regain some of that lost RAM by lowering your AGP aperture. If you have SLI video cards, take one out.
How would either of those affect memory?
Originally posted by: sm8000
I hate having to repeat myself...
When 4GB of RAM is installed in a 32-bit (2^32=4GB) system, some of the RAM will be eaten up by hardware address space. All the video card RAM is part of this. So is AGP Aperture. Seriously, try lowering it in a 4GB system with Win32 and see for yourself. And in the case of PCI-E cards, there was a thread here recently with somebody using dual 7800 cards with 512MB of video RAM each. And he wondered why his 4GB was showing up as 2.3GB...