[Bob-sama]

PAE.

Anyways, the /theoretical/ side of it says that a 32-bit OS can natively address up to 4 gigabyes of RAM. A 64-bit OS however can address up to 17,179,869,184 gigabytes of RAM (16 exabytes). That's 10¹⁸ or so. The OS itself will try to determine the maximum amount of rAM to address. As prior mentioned, basic Windows Vista supports up to 8GB or so. Windows Home Premium will support up to 16GB or so. Keep going until Ultimate and I think Enterprise too for a full 128GB supported. This is just for desktop OS's, so Server 2008 and the up-and-coming Server 2008 R2 both support more advanced technologies and are able to address more RAM as they're targeted for high-end workstations and servers.

This post has been edited by Bob-sama: Jun 9 2009, 01:39 AM

[King Aragorn]

i say: Wasted.
This is ONLY useful when operating system is 64-bit, and you have the best processor in the world.
16Gbs would be good for those who play Halo 3 emulation, and PS3 emulation.
Or Cache-ing the games. (To load the full game into the RAM. needs alot RAM to do that, but the fastest way.)
or making a HD movie in over 1920x1080 pixels, maybe 3000x2000.
Because, the max needed memory would be around 6-8Gigs.

Sooo... wasted money.. unless he is a REAL gamer or programmer to make a game with HD details like real-life, and no limit of sight. (No fog is made so the game can cache the world before you get there and also to not get so high preassure on PC, like in RS.)
Unless he has CrossfireX and a GREAT powesupply, and quad core CPU + the best GPU in existence, wasted.
It has to bve more equal to be able to process.
A PC with 256Mb ram cant have a quad core CPU, because then only little of the CPU wold be possible to use because it gets too little memory to load into.

[MrBiggles5]

Dont bother, like others have said its a waste. Tell him 4GB is enough for any serious gamer at this time.

[LP Forever]

Dont bother, like others have said its a waste. Tell him 4GB is enough for any serious gamer at this time.

you think i didn't already try that?

[Arianna]

Dont bother, like others have said its a waste. Tell him 4GB is enough for any serious gamer at this time.

"640k ought to be enough for anybody" rings a bell?

[Caboose]

It does. It's on a poster at school

Still, at this point in time 4-6GB is more than enough. Sure, in the future i'm sure we can look back on this topic and laugh but it's not the future, it's the present.

[t0maz]

64 bit systems can support up to 1.5TB of RAM. i got 12GB of DDR3 myself.

I don't think that's correct...

I know Ubuntu 64bit only allows you to have 64gb of RAM, and Win7 only allows 192gb.

I know nothing of tech stuff, but iirc, in a 32 bit system, you have a maximum of 2^32 bytes of ram, or 4GB.

Would the theoretical limit for a 64 bit system be 2^64 bytes of ram? (Something like... 15 million terabytes of ram lol)

There's a limit most processors use though, for max ram amount, isn't there? Not to mention motherboard size, hehe. But then again, couldn't you link up a bunch of 4x4GB mobos to allow multiple processors and ram on a single machine? Or is that not possible.


I'm here to learn! Please teach me! Although this is largely offtopic. :3

AFAIK what you are saying about 2^64 bytes of ram is correct. That's how I've allways understood it.

Its possible to get multi CPU motherboards, but I don't know that you can link multiple motherboards together in one OS. You could build multiple linux boxes into a big sever cluster, and run virtual windows on top of that, but it wouldn't be very practical. Unfortunately, there isn't a good way to link up 2 mobo's and drop windows on top =/. Even running 2 CPU's at the same time is a pain.

Of course, eventually once you get up to enough RAM, the CPU can't support it.. Because of this, OS developers don't code for that much. 100's of gigs isn't necessary, even for servers.

All of this is off topic however. OP, unless your friend does alot of photoshopping huge images (a couple gigs), or editing huge movies, 16 gb is overkill. 4-8 would be fine.

This post has been edited by t0maz: Jun 9 2009, 07:04 PM

[-REAP-]

It does. It's on a poster at school

Still, at this point in time 4-6GB is more than enough. Sure, in the future i'm sure we can look back on this topic and laugh but it's not the future, it's the present.

Yeah and 1TB usb drives are like 512mb drives now. I'll go build a time machine to buy some cheep stuff

[Emo_Nemo]

Dont bother, like others have said its a waste. Tell him 4GB is enough for any serious gamer at this time.

"640k ought to be enough for anybody" rings a bell?

Notice he said at this time

[Arianna]

Dont bother, like others have said its a waste. Tell him 4GB is enough for any serious gamer at this time.

"640k ought to be enough for anybody" rings a bell?

Notice he said at this time

Yes, but when I buy a computer I expect it to last at least a few years.

[Emo_Nemo]

Dont bother, like others have said its a waste. Tell him 4GB is enough for any serious gamer at this time.

"640k ought to be enough for anybody" rings a bell?

Notice he said at this time

Yes, but when I buy a computer I expect it to last at least a few years.

By time we need 16gb of RAM that processor will be dated.

shizzle by time that happens we will be on 12 core CPU's

[Caboose]

So you spend twice as much on it to make it last 125% longer? Doesn't add up in my opinion...

[Arianna]

So you spend twice as much on it to make it last 125% longer? Doesn't add up in my opinion...

I didn't say I'd want to make it last longer, just long.

(Not to mention that I wouldn't buy it...but that's off topic)

[gabtdw]

64 bit systems can support up to 1.5TB of RAM. i got 12GB of DDR3 myself.

explain to me what anyone would do with 1.5TB of RAM

Take a look at HP Integrity Superdome servers. Up to 2TB of RAM I believe, which can be harnessed by some OSs. You would use that for huge fudge-off databases and vast buffers of complex calculations. My dad was working at a huge mobile carrier where they used hundreds of these to manage.. all the phone calls on their UK network. That's what you do with that much RAM

@OP: On a laptop, aren't there only 2 SO-DIMM slots, meaning he'd have to find 2 8gig modules..? They don't exist

This post has been edited by Earlofvarrok: Jun 10 2009, 04:40 PM

[Gravedigg154]

Does anyone have that video where that guy hoops a computer up with like 10TB or something of DDR3 RAM???
Where he liked ripped a DVD to his computer before a cd dropped out the window hit the ground?

[LP Forever]

Does anyone have that video where that guy hoops a computer up with like 10TB or something of DDR3 RAM???
Where he liked ripped a DVD to his computer before a cd dropped out the window hit the ground?

no but i'd say the odds of actually being able to do that are pretty slim

[redmonke]

Does anyone have that video where that guy hoops a computer up with like 10TB or something of DDR3 RAM???
Where he liked ripped a DVD to his computer before a cd dropped out the window hit the ground?

That's would be the Samsung SSD Awesomeness.

An SSD is a hard drive that doesn't have any moving parts in it. They're also generally much faster (and expensive).

[LP Forever]

Does anyone have that video where that guy hoops a computer up with like 10TB or something of DDR3 RAM???
Where he liked ripped a DVD to his computer before a cd dropped out the window hit the ground?

That's would be the Samsung SSD Awesomeness.

An SSD is a hard drive that doesn't have any moving parts in it. They're also generally much faster (and expensive).

ok now i'm confused. they used 24 SSDs but how did they use them to take the place of RAM? Last i checked it doesn't work that way.

[Emo_Nemo]

Only computers that use terabytes of RAM are super computers and those are primarily used in physics and nuclear calculations.

[redmonke]

Does anyone have that video where that guy hoops a computer up with like 10TB or something of DDR3 RAM???
Where he liked ripped a DVD to his computer before a cd dropped out the window hit the ground?

That's would be the Samsung SSD Awesomeness.

An SSD is a hard drive that doesn't have any moving parts in it. They're also generally much faster (and expensive).

ok now i'm confused. they used 24 SSDs but how did they use them to take the place of RAM? Last i checked it doesn't work that way.

They don't. I was just posting to clear it up that the video he was thinking of was using SSDs and not RAM linked together.

I think they used 8/12gb of RAM, though.