What does mean? (Sony Vaio RAM)

Matt · Sep 16, 2008

I'm looking at buying a Sony Vaio VGN-FW11ZU.

Only thing I dont understand is what it means in the description about the ram:

4 GB DDR2-800 SDRAM (2*2048 MB), maximum 4 GB DDR2-800 SDRAM - a portion of the system memory over 3 GB might not be available to the operating system

What does that last bit mean exactly?

Kontraband · Sep 16, 2008

In a 32-bit Windows OS, it uses up a gigabyte for memory addressing space, 3GB would have been a more better choice.

Basically your not getting 4GB of RAM to use but I wouldn't worry. Your getting 4GB - about 1GB for addressing, which is whats not available to the OS in that description.

Make sense?

gradwells · Sep 17, 2008

Your new PC will be MS vista , I thought that vista could use all of the 4gb ?
I upgraded a vista PC from 2gb to 4gb and there was a huge improvement .
Regards
Ian

Kontraband · Sep 17, 2008

yeah, Vista can actually... running 64bit but its dependant on your mobo chipset. It needs to support remapping. It can still be a 32bit edition of Vista

I guess with the spec saying what it did, that the GB is already used.. so running in 32bit

Matt · Sep 17, 2008

Yeah I dont really understand any of what you are talking about lol

Kontraband · Sep 18, 2008

AHAHAHAH, well the important thing then is... you'll be fine!

FactionOne · Sep 18, 2008

Mr Kontraband has it pretty much spot on. You've 'maxxed-out' your RAM capacity, and while you might not necessarily get all of it now, you'll not miss much - and having 2x2GB in symmetry will give better performance in terms of dual-channel operation than having 1x2GB and 1x1GB - you might've saved a couple of quid, but when pushing the machine hard it might cost you a bit of performance, even though you'd not actually have any less usable RAM.

There's a bit more about 32-bit, 64-bit, memory addressing and memory remapping in this thread - I put a bit in post number 15 which expands a little.

Regards,

Rob.

AlexStanley · Oct 5, 2008

They're all talking Geek, Matt

Quite simply, the machine comes with 4Gb RAM but with Windows XP and 32-bit versions of Windows Vista your applications can only use 3Gb. So in theory, you could have a machine with tons and tons of memory (16Gb, for example), but only be able to use the first 3Gb regardless.

To make use of the extra bit of memory you'll need to use a 64-bit version of Windows Vista.

In real terms though, unless you're used to using things like Photoshop, it's not going to make an awful difference to be fair!

Hope that helps

NHN · Oct 5, 2008

Shall we confuse him even more & talk about memory speeds, nah we'll leave it at that

Matt · Oct 15, 2008

I didn't go for the Vaio in the end. Spec'd up a Dell Studio 15 for less.

Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26GHz Processor
4GB Ram
320GB Hard Drive
Blu-Ray Drive
Intel Wireless Card
Bluetooth
2 Year In Home warranty & Norton Anti-virus pack
Bunch O Surfers artwork

Dont think it will be here till the start of November though.

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What does mean? (Sony Vaio RAM)

Matt

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