Having just built my machine from scratch and posted my specs to somebody on another forum who asked for them; they said i should install another 2GB of memory in which i kinda thought "wot for". Here's a brief rundown of my rig excluding opticals and S.ATA's -
ASUS PW5 DH Deluxe
Intel Core 2 Duo "Conroe" E6600 with Antic Cooling Freezer Pro 7
Corsair 2GB DDR2 TwinX XMS2 PC6400
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 "CrossFire Edition"
Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900-XT
Creative X-FI Fatal1ty
Windows XP Pro + SP2
Everything runs smoothly, even BF2, F.E.A.R and PREY (settings to the 'max') and system temp well within optimum range. No overclocking.
So, i looked into the reasons and benefits as to why i should have more memory. Various sites i have visited have ALL said that WinXP Pro recognises only 4GB total but only utilises 2GB of it, thus making 2GB redundant (mainly used in server apps and instrumentation). In all the confusion i contacted Microsoft to ask them about the WinXP Pro memory limitation; they kindly sent an e-mail in reply -
Windows 9x is a 16 bit OS with 32 bit funtions.
So 16 bits (2^16=65536) can access 640Mb of memory.
Windows 2000, XP/2003 is a 32 bit OS.
So 32 bits (2^32=4294967296, or 4.2 billion) can access 4096MB, or 4GB.
Windows 2000, XP/2003 64bit is well, a 64 bit OS.
So 64 bits (2^64=18446744073709551616)can access 16GB of memory.
This does not take into account for Kernel memory and Application memory. Windows 32 bit splits this evenly 2GB/2GB.
The 64GB edtions of Windows server uses that model with "address windowing extension" functions. It still can only use 2GB at a time.
It's comparatively easy to install and use up to 2GB of RAM with Windows XP, but although most motherboards support 4GB and beyond, making best use of more than 2GB can be tricky. The currently 32-bit Windows XP supports an address range of 4GB, but if you install 4GB of RAM it will, by default, only give a 32-bit application half of this. Fortunately, Windows XP Professional SP2 (but not Home Edition) users can add a '/3GB' switch to their Boot.ini file to force their PCs to allocate up to 3GB to programs. If on the other hand you're running Windows XP Professional x64 then you should be able to access all 4GB.
On a similar note, i contacted ASUS and a nice chap e-mailed this -
If you install Windows XP 32-bit version operating system, we recommend that you install less than 3GB of total memory. If more than 3GB memory is required for your system, then below two conditions must be met:
1. The memory controller which supports memory swap functionality is used. The latest chipsets like Intel 975X, 955X, Nvidia NF4 SLI Intel Edition, Nvidia NF4 SLI X16, and AMD K8 CPU architecture can support the memory swap function.
2. Windows XP Pro X64 Ed. (64-bit) or other OS which can address more than 4GB memory.
From this i can only see the benefit of installing an extra 2GB of DDR2 is in case i install x64 Pro (unsure about Vista), use my rig as a server or plug in MIDI keyboards and samplers and use my rig as a recording studio. NO, i'm happy with what i use my rig for, basic applications, internet and extreme game playing.
I just wonder if there are people out there that only use WinXP Pro, a board supporting up to 8GB of memory and has indeed installed more than 2GB of memory.
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