4GB of RAM and a 32bit OS?

[MBrown]

Is there any reason to get 4GB of RAM if you don't have a 64bit OS?

 

[OdiN]

You'll use most of it. Usually around 3.5GB or something.

 

[bamacre]

If there is one reason, that reason is because ram is cheap as hell right now.

 

[themisfit610]

seriously! Under $100 AR.. amazing how cheap DDR2 is these days!

 

[MBrown]

I was under the impression that a 32bit OS didn't use more than 2GB of ram.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: MBrown
I was under the impression that a 32bit OS didn't use more than 2GB of ram.

A 32-bit OS will recognize as much of the RAM as it can after it has used the address space it needs for things like video card, etc.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: DSF

Originally posted by: MBrown
I was under the impression that a 32bit OS didn't use more than 2GB of ram.

A 32-bit OS will recognize as much of the RAM as it can after it has used the address space it needs for things like video card, etc.

With an upper bound of 4GB (2^32 bits).

 

[bamacre]

Originally posted by: themisfit610
seriously! Under $100 AR.. amazing how cheap DDR2 is these days!

AR? Try $78 + ship. Check Hot Deals.

 

[Blain]

Is there a reason NOT to be hoarding DDR2 at this time?

 

[JackBurton]

Originally posted by: MBrown
I was under the impression that a 32bit OS didn't use more than 2GB of ram.

A 32 bit OS (as in Windows), will not be able to use more than 2GB per process, but the system will have access to the whole 4GB. You'll only be able to use ~3.5GB of it though.

 

[Madwand1]

The /3GB boot-time option can be used, but will only take effect with applications marked LargeAddressAware. You can also mark application to be that after the fact using some simple development tools.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms791558.aspx

But as 2 GiB is something like a hard limit for applications, even if they're externally marked to be largeaddressaware, the code might be written to avoid allocating that much memory/address space (assuming that it had any chance of using it in the first place).