Win Xp Pro and memory

[tyler811]

I know that Win Xp Pro 32 bit will not "see" 4 gigs of ram. If I runnng 2 gigs in dual channel as opposed to 4 gigs in dual channel which will be faster?

The 2 gig since all of it is recognized by windows or the 4 gig. I am thinking that since not all the 4 gig is seen by the OS it will run in single channel.

Would I be better off using XP Pro 64 bit with 4 gigs of memory? Thanks

 

[Marty502]

Dual Channel is a hardware function deep into the mobo which is not affected by the OS. With 4 gigs of RAM in regular Win XP, it will see 3. something gigs of RAM, but it will work in Dual Channel anyway. It will be faster than 2 GB then, obviously.

However, if you're into having all 4 gigs of RAM usable, get Vista x64 instead of XP 64 if your rig doesn't have issues with it. Vista x64 has better hardware compatibility, and Superfetch will put all that RAM to good use right away.

 

[cprince]

Single channel or dual channel memory configuration is hardware(chipset), not software(Operation System). I would think that 4GB( 4x1GB) would be faster than 2GB(2x1GB) because the memory can be interleaved more, but this is just my guess. Decide whether or not you need 4GB of memory, then get XP or Vista 64-bit.