Is More Memory Better?

Subject: Is More Memory Better? Fri Jul 11, 2008 3:31 pm

Hey I found this little article today and I must say I am well educated now in the memory side of the equation, for which I was a novice at best before. I learned alot from this article personally, and since I am not a "hardware" person, because I normally take this stuff with a grain of salt, you might say. But I did read thing that I did not know and this is one of them:

"As you may or may not know, 32-bit operating systems are limited to addressing a maximum memory size of 4,294,967,296 bytes, or "4GB" in more normal terms. However, this 4GB is shared between all MMIO (Memory-Mapped Input Output) devices - this includes graphics cards. Therefore, that nice, shiny new 512MB graphics card you've just bought limits your entire system memory use to just 3.5GB. What about the newest Nvidia GeForce 280 GTX with 1GB of GDDR3? That'll reduce your system memory to just 3GB."

Well I knew about the 4GB's of total memory for the 32-bit systems, BUT what I did not know about was where the "shared" part of the equation came into play. That does not seem right to me, because if this is the case, WHY even put "on-board" memory on the video card at all?

In the conclusion of the article the author made reference to the section below:

"In multiple scenarios - task switching out of games, load times of save games, and even in-game itself - 4GB or more of memory makes the experience faster and smoother. We've got upcoming triple-A titles like FarCry 2, Stalker: Clear Sky or Crysis: Warhead, which will be at least no less intensive than what is currently available, so it's absolutely worth doubling up over 2GB if you're a keen member of the PC gaming master race. For a few less intensive titles like Call of Duty 4, it doesn't make a blind bit of difference between 2GB and 4GB of memory. Consider what you play before you dive into your next purchase."

Now that paragraph basically says it all to me. And since I consider myself within that "PC gaming master race", I am going to have to start budgeting for my NEXT new system, IF I want to play those new upcoming "Triple-A" game titles that will be coming out.

But you can read the entire article below:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/07/08/is-more-memory-better/1

But in closing, the article also opened my eyes to the reality that the 64-bit version of Vista might be the one to go with on any new PC that anyone may be considering on accomplishing. (**Yes Skull, NOW I see the proof that a 64-bit version is just a little bit better than a 32-bit version!**) affraid

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The NightCrawler.com
PC Game News

Subject: Re: Is More Memory Better? Fri Jul 11, 2008 3:56 pm

You should know that I would never feed you bad cheese. 64 bit is the only way to go and will never ever use 32 bit again. Everything I do runs faster and smoother and could not be happier. Thing is with 4Gb is getting memory with higher speeds or that to match your front side bus speeds. Like mine is 1066. My memory is 800 and if I went with this,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227298

I would see an increase in my tasks and games. And look at the price for 4Gb which is insane. I could over clock my memory but not sure id I could get it to 1066 and run stable.
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