Guru3D.com
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • Channels
    • Archive
  • DOWNLOADS
    • New Downloads
    • Categories
    • Archive
  • GAME REVIEWS
  • ARTICLES
    • Rig of the Month
    • Join ROTM
    • PC Buyers Guide
    • Guru3D VGA Charts
    • Editorials
    • Dated content
  • HARDWARE REVIEWS
    • Videocards
    • Processors
    • Audio
    • Motherboards
    • Memory and Flash
    • SSD Storage
    • Chassis
    • Media Players
    • Power Supply
    • Laptop and Mobile
    • Smartphone
    • Networking
    • Keyboard Mouse
    • Cooling
    • Search articles
    • Knowledgebase
    • More Categories
  • FORUMS
  • NEWSLETTER
  • CONTACT

New Reviews
ASRock Radeon RX 6700 XT Phantom Gaming D OC review
Enermax Aquafusion 360 review LCS
Intel Core i5 11400F processor review
Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro SL 3600 MHz 32GB review
ASRock Z590 Extreme review
Gigabyte Radeon RX 6700 XT Gaming OC review
Corsair K70 RGB TKL keyboard review
Corsair RM650x (2021) power supply review
be quiet! Silent Loop 2 280mm review
Corsair K55 RGB PRO XT keyboard review

New Downloads
Corsair Utility Engine Download (iCUE) Download v4.10.273
Display Driver Uninstaller Download version 18.0.3.9
AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 21.4.1 driver download
3DMark Download v2.17.7166 + Time Spy
NVIDIA Unreal Engine 4 RTX & DLSS Demo
Intel HD graphics Driver Download Version: DCH 27.20.100.9466
CPU-Z download v1.96
GeForce 466.11 WHQL driver download
Guru3D RTSS Rivatuner Statistics Server Download 7.3.2 Beta 2
MSI Afterburner 4.6.4 Beta 2 Download


New Forum Topics
Seagate Now Offers High Capacity FireCuda External Hard Drives and Gaming Hub DLSS arrives for COD: Warzone and Modern Warfare GeForce RTX 3080 Ti price, release date surfaces Download: Radeon Software Adrenalin 21.4.1 Download & Discussion UE4 RTX/DLSS Demo My experience with 4-way Sli thus far RAIJINTEK releases ANTILA D5 EVO RBW-15 ARGB reservoir integrated pump Microsoft To Share More Details on Microsoft DirectStorage for PC in April Sapphire Announces XTXH GPU based Radeon RX 6900 XT TOXIC Extreme Edition Thrustmaster Now Sells 349 USD Formula Wheel Add-On Ferrari SF1000 Edition




Guru3D.com » Review » OCZ Blade DDR3 2000 C7 memory kit review » Page 4

OCZ Blade DDR3 2000 C7 memory kit review - The 32-bit dilemma

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 04/29/2009 02:00 PM [ ] 0 comment(s)

Tweet

 

Going for 6 GB ? You'll need a 64-bit operating system

Windows 98, who didn't use that OS? What amount of memory did your PC have? Right, likely 128 MB. We now test a system that has 48 times more memory.

Over the years we progressed and noticed that applications have gotten more and more memory intensive. With Windows XP we moved towards 512 MB as standard to prevent the OS from swapping to the HDD, and as explained on the previous page with the latest games we see that the certain games really like 1 GB. All this has happened over just a couple of years.

When Microsoft launched Windows Vista, the biggest memory hog in the world. 1 GB was just be bare minimum recommended specification. They actually recommend 2 GB. And then there's 64-bit platforms supporting more than 4 GB memory. Now with Core i7 and it's triple channel memory controller, we tend to purchase 3x 2GB memory modules.

You use Vista 32-bit. I see 3 GB, where's my 6 Gigabytes of RAM?

OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 Gold Low-Voltage Triple Channel memoryCan you use 4, 6 or more GB of memory? Yes and no. As far as Windows 32-bit operating systems are concerned, the world ends at 4,096 megabytes. That's it. As an example I'll use a 4GB kit here. Say you get 4GB, it will run just fine, yet with for example Windows Vista 32-bit your memory size will be limited and you'll only have 2.9~3.2 GB out of the 4 GB available to you.

To address 4GB of memory you need 32 bits out of the address bus. There however is a problem - actually a similar problem that IBM faced when designing the original PC. You tend to want to have more than just memory in a computer - you need things like graphics cards and hard disks to be accessible to the computer in order for it to be able to use them. Microsoft call this MMIO (Memory-Mapped I/O).

If you have a video card that has 256 MB of onboard memory, that memory must be mapped within the first 4 GB of address space. If 4 GB of system memory is already installed, part of that address space must be reserved by the graphics memory mapping. Graphics memory mapping overwrites a part of the system memory. These conditions reduce the total amount of system memory that is available to the operating system.

So just as the original PC had to carve up the 8086's 1MB addressing range into memory (640K) and 'other' (384K), the same problem exists today if you want to fit memory and devices into a 32-bit address range: not all of the available 4GB of address space can be given over to memory.

For a long time this wasn't a problem, because there was a whole 4GB of address space, so devices typically lurk up in the top 1GB of physical address space, leaving the bottom 3GB for memory. And 3GB should be enough for anyone, right?

So what actually happens if you go out and buy 4GB of memory for your PC? Well, it's just like the DOS days - there's a hole in your memory map for the IO. (Now it's only 25% of the total address space, but it's still a big hole.)

So the bottom 3GB of your memory will be available, but there's a discrepancy with that last GB. If you want it all, go with a 64-bit OS. In 64-bit Windows, the limit is gone.

Anyway, let's have a peek at the modules and throw them in a test.




13 pages « 3 4 5 6 next »



Related Articles
OCZ Blade DDR3 2000 C7 memory kit review
Today we test the Blade DDR3 C7 memory kit from OCZ. To date this is the fastest memory kit I have ever seen in my test system, showing numbers that are breathtaking. With 64-bit operating systems in mind, the DDR3 kit we'll be testing today comes in a 6GB Triple channel (3x 2GB) flavor and check it .. is clocked at 2000 MHz !

© 2021