4 gig of ram, vista or xp?

[powerbuilder0]

4 gig of ram, vista or xp? I recently got 4 gig of transcend aXe ram (lookup DDR2 240Pin Long-DIMM DDR2-1200+ Unbuffer Non-ECC 5-5-5-15 at http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/MemList.asp) and I'm not sure sure if vista x64 is the way to go, i do have xp x64. What should I choose?

[Bullace]

Aslong you pay for your vista (so you can update) it's fine, you only need to bitchfight with it in the begin so it lets you edit all your stuff and let you delete a file with only 1 warning (instead of 3).

[Sir. Sashdaman]

I'd choose dual boot.
Although apparently the new Vista SP1 doesn't allow pirated versions of Vista to update.

[Sir. TheHeartSmasher]

Which is an excellent idea for Microsoft to add. Now I no longer have to worry about helping people with pirated versions of Vista or XP (Hopefully SP3 has this too) as some pirated versions have been heavily modified and are near impossible to help someone with a pirated copy, and a waste of time (after I have asked them if it was legit and they tell me a lie).

I'd suggest going with 4GBs for anything new that you build. Vista uses a little over 1GB after you have everything updated and running. Then increases with the more applications you use, especially with games.

The more ram you have the better your games will perform.

[powerbuilder0]

So you all reckon vista? vista x64 will use all 4 gigs of ram?

[Bullace]

Yup, 32bit supports 3gb max, 64bit 128gb :P

[Sir. Fritz]

Inflating numbers will not help this fellow. 64 bit only supports 8GBs of RAM.

[Sir. TheHeartSmasher]

Sorry but you are wrong the max is 128GBs of RAM for Windows Business, Enterprise and Ultimate 64bit. Please read the following from Microsoft.

A description of the differences between 32-bit versions of Windows Vista and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946765)

Where in the world did you get the information that the max was 8GBs of RAM, this is not a max for any Windows Vista Operating System.

[Sir. Jameslcfc]

8GB is usually just the maximum amount of RAM the motherboard can use :)

[Sir. Fritz]

I still see that as an inflated number, knowing nothing can support the amount of RAM and most likely won't until some genius invents a new slot type or bus. Considering 8GB is the logical maximum, you are wrong, but right about the true max.

[Bullace]

Max gb i saw (for a normal pc) on a mobo was 16gb :P

[Sir. Fritz]

Yes, but do you understand my point? Nothing requires as much resources as 4GB+ RAM. If something does, it is poorly designed toward RAM usage; I have seen some low RAM usage programs performing wonderful things.

[Sir. TheHeartSmasher]

You are wrong again.
My motherboard supports up to 64GBs of Quad Channel RAM and I am sure there are others that can do the same or more.

Why would or should I say why do people put 32Gbs of RAM or more into their machine because they do heavy duty work and fast (which depends on the amount of physical ram, speed of ram, etc...).

Video Editing
Uncrompressed Real-time from 1080P HDTV Camera or HDV or higher video editing, and don't like the idea of waiting for things to finish (Multiple large RAIDED SCSI or SATA drives running at 10,000 RPMs or more for scratch disk and storage) or not having enough resources to complete the job.
Using products like AVID, Adobe After Affects, Vegas, etc.

Visual Effects, CG, etc.
Extremely large scene renders, partical effects, visual effects, extremly large renders for video or print for movies, magazines, videogames, etc.

Architects/Design, etc.
Development of large industrial structures in detail to show the boss/customer in real time. Computer Simulations for testing how the structures would react in real world environments before it's built.

People that use an extremely large amount of programs at the same time.

The limit of 8GBs may only be true for your motherboard but not for others as for those that use many apps or high end apps will find that they will run out of ram before they run out of processing power on dual quad core XEON processors.

You can a few game editors for example, if you load it up and create the largest map possible you will notice you will not be able to do so due to your system not having enough ram

I get your point but saying nothing requires 8Gbs of ram is an understatement. Though 4GBs will do the majority of users good when running Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit.

Your right about low performance applications doing wonderful things but then again there are those that unfortunately suck all of your system resources up mainly high end applications that have limits that are only bound by your hardware at times.

[Sir. Fritz]

I prefer not to drag this argument along anymore :p , but I was referring to normal users, not super-high end users. There was a laptop released in I think 2005 or 2006 that supported one Tera byte of RAM and had 100 TB HDD space. What a major overkill! Correct me if that was a hoax.

[powerbuilder0]

I hate to gloat but my board will support up 32 gb of ram or 64, can't exactly remember off the top of my head.

[Sir. Jameslcfc]

I hate to gloat

lol

/offtopic.

[Elxx]

Doesn't Vista 32 support 4gb, limiting application space to 3gb? Sorta like XP, but slightly better?

This explains it somewhat:
http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=281738

I'm going to have 4gb of RAM soon, but driver/application incompatibilities on 64-bit are scary. :\

[Sir. TheHeartSmasher]

Yep the only thing behind now is the software developers :D Along with them updating older software/games/etc. to work with Vista 64bit.

[Elxx]

Yeah, Modjive's really going to need 4gb of RAM :p

[Sir. TheHeartSmasher]

Oh my, I hope not, since it is very resource friendly now, I just hope it stays that way :D

As for being behind the times is too much new software and games that come out that don't work correctly with Vista 32/64 bit.

You will probably see 3.25GBs to 3.5GBs of RAM for 32Bit Vista and 64Bit a nice 4GBs of RAM available and should enjoy having 3GBs plus of available RAM.

[Sir. Jameslcfc]

Oh my, I hope not, since it is very resource friendly now, I just hope it stays that way :D

You fail at spotting sarcasm :p

[Sir. XaliaS]

Yep, buy 4GB of RAM + Vista 64 and then install XP.

Catering for the early adopters is important for development into high memory mainstream Vista users as Microsoft isn't going to let it silently die like Windows ME did, and make another whole new OS.

So unless you are a software developer of any sort, Vista just isn't as lightweight, not as fast and full of bugs/conflicts. I have my fresh copy of Vista 64 in the box, where it belongs for another year or two.

[Sir. TheHeartSmasher]

You fail at spotting sarcasm :p

You fail at finding someone that has spotted the sarcasm :D


Oh my, I hope not, since it is very resource friendly now, I just hope it stays that way
---> :D <---

[Sir. Jameslcfc]

This conversation never happened :p

[Sir. NoHands]

dont get vista x64 yet, i downloaded it and half my peripherals ahd no drivers. YOU CANNOT INSTALL UNSIGNED DRIVERS, unlike with vista x86... x64 is really for high end design busnesses

[Sir. TheHeartSmasher]

dont get vista x64 yet, i downloaded it and half my peripherals ahd no drivers. YOU CANNOT INSTALL UNSIGNED DRIVERS, unlike with vista x86... x64 is really for high end design busnesses

Yep, make sure everything you have has signed drivers.
64bit forcing signed drivers is a good way to keep those BSOD's away.

[Black Knight]

ok now ive been on here before but never posted but this made me post because it could help me out so heres my question.

later this year i am getting my own computer (atm i have a family one :crying:) and i was planning to get 4 gig of RAM with XP but since ive been reading this i dont know if its worth it so should i downgrade to 3 gig of RAM and have xp OR upgrade my OS to vista so i can use the 4 gig?

im no good at this stuff and nither is any of my family (and my dads tight on the budget) so i would like to know what i should do and you guys seem to know what your talking about ;)

anyone able to help?

[Sir. TheHeartSmasher]

I'd recommend upgrading to Vista 64bit if you want to run the full 4GBs of RAM if you are ready to upgrade an all of your software/hardware is compatible. If you want to run 32Bit you can run Vista 32bit and get 3.25GBs-3.5GBs of RAM.

If not you can purchase 4GBs of RAM and it will read 3.25GBs-3.5GBs of RAM for 32bit XP and the full 4GBs for 64Bit XP.

[Sir. Legolas]

Last BSOD i had was caused by ETQW...

[Black Knight]

so i can take XP 64x and use all 4 gig?:confused:

[Sir. TheHeartSmasher]

Yes, up to 128GBs of RAM Windows XP Professional x64
Read more from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/facts/top10.mspx)

[Sir. TheHeartSmasher]

Well good news Windows Vista SP1 will bump up that max of 3.25Gbs~3.5GBs to a nice 4GBs of RAM :D for Vista Ultimate 32bit, I don't know about the other lower versions but my system is showing a nice 4GBs available :D

[Elxx]

Well, I'm now running Vista x64 with SP1. Dunno if it's because of the x64 sexyness, but this seems to be much snappier than any other Vista PC's I've tried recently. So far, so good.

[Sir. TheHeartSmasher]

Welcome to the Vista Speed Demon Club.
When you feed it what it wants it outperforms XP by miles.
4GBs of RAM, nice graphics card, fast processor.

[Elxx]

Unless you try to move files. Then it decides to scan through every single file you want to move, and it chugs. XP does it in half a second, Vista sometimes takes upwards of 30. :(

[Sir. TheHeartSmasher]

Turn off search indexing (when I disabled this my transfer rates went from a few MBs to 500+ MBs or more)

[Elxx]

Definitely feels much faster now. Thanks! :)