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3x2 gig on XP 32bit?

B

blade8079

Member
Hi:

I'm contemplating an i7 upgrade which was a few years overdue, but anyhow, I'm planning to still use xp 32bit for a year or so because the windows 7 drivers for some other software I use are not ready yet...

I wanted to get 3x2gig triple channel pack. Knowing 32bit ram addressing limitations what is gonna happen with XP32. Is it gonna disable certain number of gigs on each ram channel to bring it down to 4, or is it going to completely cut out one channel, leaving me with 2-channel ram infrastructure?

What is going to happen?

Thanks!
 
Nothing is being cut out/down per say.

You'll just have only ~ 3 GB useable is all (exact amount depends on mobo/peripherals/gpu/etc.).

Performance (triple channel), etc. is not affected whatsoever.
 
What software do you use that isn't ready for Vista/Win 7?

I have used XP Mode in Win 7 for some basic apps that were only XP compatible...and it worked well.

Definitely TEST it before the final changeover...just to make sure it works the way you need it to.
 
Yeah, try out XP Mode in Windows 7 before you decide to load XP. A few apps I have at work are working fine under XP Mode.
 
XP/32-bit really won't unleash the power of the i7/64-bit computing archtecture anyways, so whether your RAM runs in single, dual, or triple channel really isn't too meaningful.

But yeah....if you can, try and use virtualization to solve your problem.
 
Another vote for XP mode in W7, but if that isn't going to work, you can always use the extra 3GB of RAM in a RAM disk.
 
It depends on how your BIOS maps the memory. If it "stacks" the memory one after the other, you'll just use the first chip and some of the second. If it interleaves them across all 3 then you'll be using ~1/3 of each chip.

But really, you should be thinking about why you're clinging to an OS that is almost a decade old.
 
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