veronica 2 Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 I thought I'd make this a new thread.... Lots of the PCs now seem to come with 2GB of memory. I see many say you can upgrade them to 4GB of memory, but then in brackets say that the OS can only use 3GB at a time. Does that mean that the 1GB is a waste? And would there be a noticeable difference with 4GB in there do you think? Thank you! Link to post Share on other sites
tsondaboy 0 Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 That sounds like a Windows Vista limitation, but they should be able to fix it in one of their future service packs. Definitely go for the 3GB upgrade, and if you are planing to use the machine for a few years go for 4GB. Link to post Share on other sites
thursday 1 Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 get as much as you can afford. Adding on later would be a pain as the memory modules would've been phased out and you can't get them without paying ransom rates. Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 Don't worry about it if you are not going to be processing a lot of video, using Photoshop, or gaming. Otherwise get as much as you can afford! Link to post Share on other sites
2pints-mate 0 Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 I just read something about that. Apparently the 32 bit (?) Vista can only use 3GB max. If you want to effectively use more then you need the 64 bit version. What that means, I don't really know, but it is interesting how manufacturers are shoving 4GB on (non-geek) people who probably think that 4 is 4 and not 3. Link to post Share on other sites
poach-ninja 0 Posted April 16, 2008 Share Posted April 16, 2008 Still best to get the 4 though. 2 of the same is better than 2 + 1 Link to post Share on other sites
veronica 2 Posted April 24, 2008 Author Share Posted April 24, 2008 Thanks folks, understood. Link to post Share on other sites
Ezorisu 0 Posted April 25, 2008 Share Posted April 25, 2008 Originally Posted By: srambledeggs Still best to get the 4 though. 2 of the same is better than 2 + 1 Why buy one when you can get two for twice the price? Link to post Share on other sites
maoriboy 0 Posted June 2, 2008 Share Posted June 2, 2008 Yeah its like 2pints said. Most Windows Vista editions are 32bit so physically cannot utilise more than 3gig of ram. And yep if you have 4gig then 1gig is sitting there doing nothing. You can get Windows Vista 64bit editions (think the ultimate version comes with 32 and 64 versions in the same package) and they will use the full 4gig of ram. Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted June 2, 2008 Share Posted June 2, 2008 you dont need 4gb unless you are doing heavy photo editing, video editing etc. just get a single 2gb chip and then you can add a second 2gb chip later if u need it. you can check how much RAM you are using anytime by looking in task manager. try running a load of programs and checking how much memory it is using, you may be surprised by how low it is. fast processor and hdd is more important to overall speed i think. 1gb to 4gb isnt going to make a big difference. Link to post Share on other sites
journey_man 0 Posted June 2, 2008 Share Posted June 2, 2008 If you are running Vista don't get less than 2Gb, it's too slow. I just checked the microsoft pages and the memory limit for 32bit Vista is 4Gb, although there was an earlier installation problem with greater than 3Gb. This was sorted with SP1 or there is a work around for earlier installation media. Check here for details. For the technically minded 32 bit can address 4G (type 2^32 into Google) and there are technologies to allow addressing beyond that for 32bit OS's (like Windows 2003, Linux, etc) that require bigger memory. Avoid 64 bit anything for a little while until it is more sorted. (Macs and big iron unix are Ok) There is simply not enough support for 64bit yet to make it an easy experience. As others have said get the biggest of everything that you can easily afford. That goes for memory, hard disk and cpu's. If you are going to be watching/editing any videos or gaming, add graphics to that list. You might not need it now, but you will in the future. The laptop I'm using now I have upgraded the memory once and the hard disk twice and it is only just keeping up, yet when I bought it new 4 years ago it was fast and had memory and hard disk space to burn. 4 years is not very long, so you want your new computer to last as long as possible. Funnily enough the application that annoys me the most for speed is GMail! Web browsing is no longer light usage. Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted June 2, 2008 Share Posted June 2, 2008 Try firefox 3 (beta), it is lightning fast for gmail and other ajax-heavy websites. Link to post Share on other sites
@tokyo 14 Posted June 2, 2008 Share Posted June 2, 2008 I was thinking that too! Link to post Share on other sites
journey_man 0 Posted June 2, 2008 Share Posted June 2, 2008 Originally Posted By: bobby12 Try firefox 3 (beta), it is lightning fast for gmail and other ajax-heavy websites. I reckon FF 3 has extended the life of my computer by at least a year! Yay! Link to post Share on other sites
scouser 4 Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 Why exactly is that Journey Man? Link to post Share on other sites
journey_man 0 Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 I work with Firefox a lot and usually have many tabs open. This often caused Firefox to be quite slow and to use huge amounts of memory. In some cases I had to remember to close certain sites if I wanted other sites or apps to work acceptably. For example I often had to close GMail so I could watch a video clip. Also I usually had to completely shut Firefox 2 down at least once a day to release the 800Mb to 1G of memory it was holding. For a system that only has 1.2G of RAM, that's a lot! So because of this I was starting to look around for a new computer. Someone mentioned that FF3 beta was so much faster, so I tried it out. Apart from some of my favourite plugins not working, which will come right in time, it is waaaaaay fast and doesn't hog memory. I've stopped thinking about a new computer. Long may it last! Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted June 3, 2008 Share Posted June 3, 2008 How stable is FF3. I use FF2. It`s better than IE, but that isn`t saying much. Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 I use FF3 on my home desktop. Its very stable and very fast. Has some nice new features too. I cant use it at work or on my laptop because I need the rikaichan addon too much. Once that gets released for FF3 im switching over. Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 Just remembered - some sites dont work with FF3 by the way. slide.com for example. It will be a while before developers get around to testing the sites in FF3 (especially as its not officially released yet). Obviously simple sites are OK, but ones with lots of javascript (ironically what FF3 is designed to be better for) may not work. Link to post Share on other sites
journey_man 0 Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 Apart from some of the addons not working I have had zero problems with FF3. The Javascript intensive sites I use all work fine. I've never used slide.com, so don't know about that site. However the slide.com stuff in Facebook works fine. Not everyone's experience will be the same. My Mac wielding flatmate has gone back to FF2 for the moment. Be aware that FF3 isn't officially released and everyone is using beta's - which have some bugs. Also expect regular releases. If you are having any issues with FF3 I'd check weekly for new releases. For example friends were surprised that I wasn't having problems with a particular site - it turned out the version I was using had been released the day I switched. Also for windows users, DO NOT install into the same directory as FF2. Unless that bug has been fixed, of course... If you hate bugs, your FF2 is working fine and is quick enough for you (I'd be happy with FF2 on a new machine) wait for the official release. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 Thanks JM. I find FF2 sucks up memory and will crash after it`s been running for a few days. I`m going to install FF on the lady`s laptop for when we travel. I might try FF3 on that. Cheers Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 Just found out rikaichan is available for FF3 now http://www.polarcloud.com/rikaichan/ I'M SWITCHING! Link to post Share on other sites
bobby12 0 Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 Google Gears is not yet ready for FF3. I've being using Google Docs instead of MS Office but I guess it'll soon be available. Link to post Share on other sites
kokodoko 67 Posted June 4, 2008 Share Posted June 4, 2008 i am getting a new desktop today with 4gig of ram in it.. i need all the grunt i can get for photo editing and other multimedia stuff i do.. and i am getting XP Pro on it. It seems vista is getting a bad rap and some businesses are rolling back to xp pro and there is a new windows 7.0 due out in 2009. Link to post Share on other sites
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