The Future of Computer Memory: 2GB+

[Apoptosis]

Today we have an editorial by Nathan Kirsch on the future of computer memory and what he believes is the right memory for you. With Windows Vista due out in 2006 and time running out in 2005 his recommendations for system memory has changed for professional users, gamers, and enthusiasts. Read on to see what made him change his mind.

The old 32-bit processors that we all loved such as the Intel Pentium 4 and the AMD Athlon XP, could not address more than 4GB of memory. While this was an issue the move to 64-Bit computing did away with those concerns. Did you know that the current Intel Pentium 4 (EM64T) and AMD Athlon 64 (AMD64) desktop computer processors can handle 1024GB (1 Terabyte) of memory?

Article Title: The Future of Computer Memory: 2GB+
Pricing Link: Live Pricing

[TK421]

That's a good read and just might change the way I build future sytems: laptop and desktop. I just recently went from 512MB to 1GB (2x512MB) and didn't notice too much difference, maybe another 1GB would help me attain the performance I'm striving for.

[Dragon_Cooler]

i agree with going to 2 gigs. Everyone was like oh you cant tell a differance between 1 gig and 2 gig. boy were they wrong! well see who has loaded the level first gaining some frags while others are still loading the map. Of course its better to use as little stick as possible, I.E. 2x 1gig sticks, becasue my 4 sticks from 2 differant manufactuers(sp) dont help that much. LOL But yes i love the review!! Cudos!!!!!

[bubba]

2 gig I'm still limping along on 256 ..

good read, showed it to a couple guys here at work they thought the same as well, very well done.

[Strid3r-]

The last issue of PC World had an article about vista...

The requirements they said were also 2GB (well reccommended reqs). Glad my new comp has 2 gigs cause I'm gonna get Vista ASAP I had XP Pro.

[NAiLs]

When I built my Desktop PC back in April of 2003, I threw 1GB in there. 1GB was SCREAMING for it's time! My god, I knew tons of people with 512MB systems, but 1GB? Not heard of often. Well, that's over 2-1/2 years now and I hear a lot of 1GB, some 1-1/2GB, but seldom 2GB now. I gotta say, I do recommend 2GB to anyone myself, and have for the past 10 months. My brother was building a PC, he insisted he go with 1GB after me saying go 2GB. Well, when he got into BF2, he found out 1GB sucked hardcore. He ended up buying another gig and it satisfies his needs greatly.

Ever since I put 2GB into my laptop, my god does this thing fly. I had so many problems in WoW having only 512MB to start with and I don't think I would ever go lower than 2GB again.

My next system, well, 4GB is my goal. I'm gonna build a decked out system that can last me another 2-3 years like my previous one. My laptop is getting old, having a P4 2.8GHz CPU and a Radeon 9700, so I'm thinking of building something new come fall next year. Whether it's a laptop or desktop, that will be up to the future to decide. If it's a laptop, I gotta search around for a chassis that supports 4GB, because I honestly don't see much around with that kind of support yet. I think by the time I'm ready, technology will have gone a few steps further and new options will be available to me.

[Gundersausage]

But what was he talking about in the article? 2GB total in a dual channel system which is effectively only 1GB? or 2GB for each channel (4GB)?

[Apoptosis]

I was speaking about 2GB total (2 x 1024MB).

Welcome to the forums and thanks for reading the article!

[kenc51]

Welcome Gundersausage

[Gundersausage]

I was speaking about 2GB total (2 x 1024MB).

Welcome to the forums and thanks for reading the article!

But is that 1GB per channel in a dual channel system?
For instance in my 939 system I have never thought the 3% performance increase in dual channel warranted the 100% cost so I just have 1 stick of 1GB which is equal (in total working memory) to 2GB in a dual channel configuration

[cre8]

Dang I'm berely upgrading to 1gb!

[kenc51]

I was speaking about 2GB total (2 x 1024MB).

Welcome to the forums and thanks for reading the article!

But is that 1GB per channel in a dual channel system?
For instance in my 939 system I have never thought the 3% performance increase in dual channel warranted the 100% cost so I just have 1 stick of 1GB which is equal (in total working memory) to 2GB in a dual channel configuration

Yes it is 1GB in per channnel! But that just means 2GB in total.....2GB in single or dual channel is better than 1GB......That's the point of the article!

[Gundersausage]

I was speaking about 2GB total (2 x 1024MB).

Welcome to the forums and thanks for reading the article!

But is that 1GB per channel in a dual channel system?
For instance in my 939 system I have never thought the 3% performance increase in dual channel warranted the 100% cost so I just have 1 stick of 1GB which is equal (in total working memory) to 2GB in a dual channel configuration

Yes it is 1GB in per channnel! But that just means 2GB in total.....2GB in single or dual channel is better than 1GB......That's the point of the article!

Well yes but 2GB in dual channel is barely (3-5%) better than 1GB in single channel assuming an AMD system
In fact you could make a case for saving a fortune by using your existing 2 X 512mb in a single channel configuration, you would probablty pick up the 3-5% and more at no cost
Certainly from an AMD perspective which just doesn't see any real dual channel benefits to speak of

[Illuminati]

I was speaking about 2GB total (2 x 1024MB).

Welcome to the forums and thanks for reading the article!

But is that 1GB per channel in a dual channel system?
For instance in my 939 system I have never thought the 3% performance increase in dual channel warranted the 100% cost so I just have 1 stick of 1GB which is equal (in total working memory) to 2GB in a dual channel configuration

Yes it is 1GB in per channnel! But that just means 2GB in total.....2GB in single or dual channel is better than 1GB......That's the point of the article!

Well yes but 2GB in dual channel is barely (3-5%) better than 1GB in single channel
In fact you could make a case for saving a fortune by using your existing 2 X 512mb in a single channel configuration, you would probablty pick up the 3-5% and more with no cost

I think the direction of the article was to inform users that in the very near future, Operating systems and games will not perform optimally on a system that only has 1GB of memory. So the article is not based on any benchmarks out today... the only exception may be Battlefield 2. If you have that game, try benchmarking it with 1 GB in single channel vs. 2GB in dual channel... I think you will see the difference; night and day.... meaning much larger than a 3-5% performance difference.

So the article is based on capacity requirements increasing... not performance tests of apps that don't need more than 1GB to begin with.

Hope this clears it up and welcome to the community!

[toyota]

I was speaking about 2GB total (2 x 1024MB).

Welcome to the forums and thanks for reading the article!

But is that 1GB per channel in a dual channel system?
For instance in my 939 system I have never thought the 3% performance increase in dual channel warranted the 100% cost so I just have 1 stick of 1GB which is equal (in total working memory) to 2GB in a dual channel configuration

you dont understand memory. 2gb in single OR dual channel is still 2gb. 1gb is NOT equal to 2gb in dual channel. dual channel does slightly increase performance over single channel.

[Kerii]

Single Channel:


Dual Channel:


Don't think it gets any simpler than that, it's not about capacity, only transfer rate.

Yes it is 1GB in per channnel! But that just means 2GB in total.....2GB in single or dual channel is better than 1GB......That's the point of the article!

I'm going to have to disagree on that one.

Many games and applications barely need the extra memory 2GB would provide, but benefit greatly from dual channel, so there are many instances where 1GB in dual channel would perform better than 2GB in single channel. However... seeing as there's no reason to run 2GBs of memory in single channel (unless you have a 2GB DIMM for some reason), it's kind of a moot point.

[kenc51]

You got me there Kerii

[R3N3G4D3]

The old 32-bit processors that we all loved such as the Intel Pentium 4 and the AMD Athlon XP, could not address more than 4GB of memory. While this was an issue the move to 64-Bit computing did away with those concerns. Did you know that the current Intel Pentium 4 (EM64T) and AMD Athlon 64 (AMD64) desktop computer processors can handle 1024GB (1 Terabyte) of memory?

Wait, I'm confused. I always thought that the amount of addressable memory is limited by (aside from the chipset) the size of the address bus supported by the CPU, which is what got upgraded in 64-bit architecture. The 32-bit bus can address 2^32 bytes of memory (since that's how many combinations can be generated, and each memory byte has its own unique number), while the 64-bit one should address 2^64 bytes.
2^32 = 4294967296 bytes (or 4 gigabytes)
2^64 = 18446744073709551616 bytes (or 16 exabytes, aka 16 million terabytes)

So why is the article claiming that 64-bit architecture can support up to a maximum of 1 TB, when it's actually 16 million times as much? Or am I missing something?

[kenc51]

It's all about the OS......Windows 64bit kernel has the limitation as does alot of other OS's!

Cray are making/made a supercompter that has 10,368 AMD cpu's 240TB of disk storage and 10TB of high-speed RAM!!!!!

It is possible to sue more RAM....

[pointreyes]

I might potentially be at 3 Gigs of DDR2 in the near future on my main workstation. My new file server will only be using 2 Gigs but eventually might require 4 Gigs. My old file server with 2 Gigs rarely had 800Meg free and I'm planning to push this new file server harder.