On the Vista Horizon: 2Gb or...more?

[guillaume]

How long do you guys think that 2Gb will be the standard before more RAM is required? If M$ says you need 2Gb to run Vista...will we really need 4 in order to stay above the standard? Food for thoughts... :)

[inkfx]

I wont go with 4GB untill they clock well. :p

[RedDragonXXX]

I think that 2GB will last for some time until they develop better procs with larger cache (L1 and L2) and better memory controllers either being the northbridge or on-die cause there are few ones out there that can handle 4GB effectively unless they are ECC.

[Mustanley]

I'm sure Vista can be tweaked to use a much smaller memory footprint just like w/ XP. It's probably just a matter of disabling unecessary services and turning off features you don't want/need.

[Haste266]

says here (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/vistarpc.mspx#EDAA) that you only need 512mb ram for vista.

[Bios24]

People aren't going to be upgrading to 2gb just for Vista. Gamers will want 2gb, but normal users will be fine with 512. As in the past, we'll see a climb in ram on stock PC's. Computers that came with 256 will now come with 512, and computers that came with 512 will come with 1gb.

When XP came out it ran just fine with 128mb. I'm sure when Vista comes out it will run just fine on 256-512. A couple years from now most users will want 1gb, and a couple years from then you might see normal users with 2gb. (Gamers will have 4gb? 8gb?)

[kiyoshilionz]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the big reasons for 64-bit processors (which are somewhat useless right now) is that they can address more memory. With 32-bit memory addressing, a CPU cannot exceed 4GB. With 64-bit memory addressing, you can go up to something like 16TB of memory.

[jcw122]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the big reasons for 64-bit processors (which are somewhat useless right now) is that they can address more memory. With 32-bit memory addressing, a CPU cannot exceed 4GB. With 64-bit memory addressing, you can go up to something like 16TB of memory.

Maybe I'm off my hinges (always wanted to say that), but isn't memory right now (DDR) already at 64-bit? I always thought 64-bit CPU processing was different from the memory stuff though.

And yes, 64-bit is useful...in Linux it makes stuff fly compared to x86 (which already flew circles around Windows)

[jcw122]

says here (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/vistarpc.mspx#EDAA) that you only need 512mb ram for vista.

You can run WinXP on 256MB...is it slow? Heck no, it's not even slow, it's...what ever slower than slow would be called.... :eh?:

[Fferrett]

says here (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/vistarpc.mspx#EDAA) that you only need 512mb ram for vista.

Well...You can't even run XP and 2 applications respectably without 512MB. Yet the minimum required is 256MB by MS definition. For anyone who loads XP, all of the patches, office, and runs some sort of firewall/antivirus, the minimum footprint, just running Outlook and Internet explorer exceeds 384k.

If you're planning on using the new Vista GPU intensive Aero desktop, all of the new os & filesystem features, I'd say your minimum is truly 512MB (without any other applications). Then if you'd also like to run applications on this OS, add memory.

Is 2GB too expensive? Slower cheaper memory is ALWAYS faster than swapping out to disk. You don't have to buy 2GB of DDR2-1000 ($400+) memory to run Vista. 2GB of DDR2-400 ($150) will work just fine.

Memory is the cheapest $ per performance in your computer, especially when you have too little.

[Sir. BOBSONATOR]

im runnign the latest beta right now (Build 5308 64bit) with one gig and its fine...

Im just waiting for ATI to come out with the drivers for 5308...

[Mr. Perfect]

I don't remeber where, but I remeber some MS guys saying that when running 64bit instead of 32bit, Vista applications would need double the ram, hence the need for 2GB. Now I'm no expert on 64bit, but that sounds like complete and utter BS to me. A 6MB file should be 6MB no matter how many bits, right? I could see how a small item that used to fit inside a 32bit chunk of ram would now take 64bits even if it wasted the new 32bits in it's chunk, but that's no reason to claim doubled ram usage.

BTW, anyone remeber who, when, or where that was said? I'm thinking it was some daily news item on Anandtech or some other review site.

[Sir. BOBSONATOR]

double the ram?

I would like to have it. lol..

My page file is 764 right now!

[apu318]

Maybe I'm off my hinges (always wanted to say that), but isn't memory right now (DDR) already at 64-bit? I always thought 64-bit CPU processing was different from the memory stuff though.

And yes, 64-bit is useful...in Linux it makes stuff fly compared to x86 (which already flew circles around Windows)


32bit and 64bit computing is how many spaces of binary data the cpu can read/write at once.

Computers have a 64bit/128bit memory interface meaning that the computer can read/write 64bits of data to a DIMM, or 64bits each to two sticks of ram (dual channel).

The actual number of bits the processor can address has no direct correlation with how much memory you can have... it's mostly dependant on the memory controller.



Sorry if this doesnt make sense. I just realized that Nyquil Liquigels really hoof you in the balls.

[z0n3]

You can run WinXP on 256MB...is it slow? Heck no, it's not even slow, it's...what ever slower than slow would be called.... :eh?:
I run xp on a 733 mhz celeron with crap 256 ram with silent cooling. The thing runs extremely well. The only thing it has any problems with is graphics entensive work. Why? Because it uses on board graphics thats why. For an internet rig it plain rocks. Heck I play Marathon and Doom on it when I get board. Diablo 2 runs well on it also.
Sorry if this doesnt make sense. I just realized that Nyquil Liquigels really hoof you in the balls.
Obey the Q! Do the liquigels still have the green death flavor? I think I shall go and buy some to find out.

[guillaume]

Hmmm hopefully they fix that in they RTM.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=30503

it would just be plain insane otherwise.

[SuperFarStucker]

Actually modern X86-64 uses 48 bit not 64 bit memory addressing but the memory addressing bit width is not an issue in itself as hacks like PAE enable a system to use more memory as 32 bit, I believe 64 GiB is the pracitcal limit with PAE but it does make memory addressing slower as it is effectively emulating an extra bits on the memory addressing.

I don't expect the addressing limit (256 Terabytes) of x86-64 to be reached before its useful lifespan expires, and the architecture is designed so that future implementations could use 64 bit addressing which is 16 exabytes.