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Notebook Makers Moving to 4 GB Memory As Standard
akintayo writes "Digitimes reports that first-tier notebook manufacturers are increasing the standard installed memory from the current 1 GB to 4GB. They claim the move is an attempt to shore up the costs of DRAM chips, which are currently depressed because of a glut in market. The glut is supposedly due to increased manufacturing capacity and the slow adoption of Microsoft's Vista operating system. The proposed move is especially interesting, given that 32-bit Vista and XP cannot access 4 GB of memory. They have a practical 3.1 — 3.3 GB limit. With Vista SP1 it seems that Microsoft has decided to fix the problem by reporting the installed memory rather than the available memory."
Because OS X Leopard CAN access 4GB of RAM. Let's see if Apple also joins the fray. Then again, 4GB is way too much, because after all 640KB should be enough for everyone.
for obvious reasons :D
:D
Nice "fix" though, then people can keep adding memory and think it helps
What an ingenious solution! No wonder Microsoft is the leading innovator in IT! That's SO innovative it makes me sick. It's hard enough trying to explain to customers why they shouldn't waste their money on 4GB of memory and a 1GB video card only to lose a quarter of it in real life, now the OS is trying actively trying to make me look like a liar too.
Stop with the kludges and force the developers along. 32 bit came with the 386 era and lasted a good while - a very good run indeed. 64 bit would last beyond our lifetimes anyway, I doubt we will even come close to the limits of addressable memory there (hopefully this isn't the new 640k comment) -- so there is no point in stalling it indefinitely.
Its pathetic how poorly Microsoft has moved towards 64 Bit vs. Other OS's out there...
Solaris Way Back in the 90's with Solaris 7 I think... Had 64 bit support with perfect 32 bit
support of backwards compatability.
OS X goes a step further one OS Package and support for PowerPC, 32 Bit and 64 Bit and Intel 32 Bit
and 64 Bit. And appliactions seem to work for all of theme for the most parts (with the ovious
exceptions of apps that require the advanced features of the newer Chips.
Reporting that you have 4 Gigs installed is not a real feature it just makes it easier for the
hardware companies to scam people saying here buy this with 4 Gigs of Ram and the OS says there is 4
GIgss of Ram while it only supports 3. I would be Pissed If I knew I couldn't access all my RAM.
Say I had VMWare on my Laptop and I allocated a VM with 2 Gigs and an other with 1.5 Gig and ran both
figuring that I had 4 Gigs of Ram available. I would be annoyed that I couldn't run both of my VMs
and Not knowing seeing that it supports 4 gigs of RAM I would want to know who is taking up 512 Megs
of Active Ram. I could blame Windows for being more of a memory hog. I could blame VMWare for sucking
up all the extra memory to run. But the fault is the Hardware Manufacutre put more ram then the
PC with the preinstalled Software can handle to make a few bucks and Microsoft just plays in their
hand making everything look hunky dory.
If it says you have 4 Gigs install It should also say there are 3.3 Gigs that can be access
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
In another few years, I might be able to run Eclipse.
From the summary: "They claim the move is an attempt to shore up the costs of DRAM chips, which are currently depressed because of a glut in market."
The article says: "While first-tier notebook vendors such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Toshiba are planning to roll out 4GB notebooks starting from the first quarter of 2008, the move is expected to give a boost to the DRAM market, according to memory module makers."
The article does not say that this is a deliberate attempt to increase DRAM price. And if it was, wouldn't it be illegal?
It sounds like they should be making wiis and not memory. Solve a few problems at once
Check out my sysadmin blog!
Or at least, supervision by people who know how computers work? 4GB is perfectly sensible for a 32-bit x86; the virtual address space is only 4GB, but the physical address spaces is larger (at least 36 bits on all popular processors). Yes, that means it's awkward to use more than 4GB in a single application, but so what? Using more than 4GB across the system is perfectly transparent.
Also, what's with slamming Microsoft over the "slow" transition to 64-bit? 64-bit XP has been out for, like, three years now. It runs 32-bit applications, because the x64 architecture makes it so ridiculously easy you'd have to intentionally break it. 64-bit Linux does the same, because it takes, like, a line of code to do so. If software makers aren't producing 32-bit apps, it's probably because their customers haven't demanded they do so yet; and the customers probably haven't demanded it because it's unusual for a single application to need 4GB of RAM. Finally, those applications that can frequently use gigondo amounts of RAM in a single virtual address space (e.g., Oracle) for the most part had 64-bit binaries available right out of the gate.
Laptops, which have been a nice fat cash cow to OEMs, are steadily becoming cheaper and cheaper. Nowadays, we have retailers selling laptops for about 500 euros with specs that a couple of year ago were selling for a lot more than 1500 euros. A while back the average laptop price tag was about 1200 euros and nowadays it went down to 800 euros. That's a heck of a revenue cut.
So the OEMs are forced to add another fancy selling point, like upgrading the specs once again, in order to keep making the big bucks. They don't give a damn if it brings any added value to the product or if it even functions properly. What matters is some fancy little side remark on the laptop's brochure that makes their fancy little product be picked by the vast hordes of consuming sheep. Who cares if it makes sense or if it's even usable. What's important is that them flock falls for that "OMG! IT'S N+1!!!" and promptly spend their cash, specially for the "it's bigger than my neighbour's" bragging rights.
This sort of thing isn't exactly new. In fact, it's the repeat of another similar marketing push, which was the "32-to-64bit" campaign. The fancy stickers advertising the new and improved 64bit 'puters for the "OMG IT'S TWICE THE BITS!!" effect were all over the place, which earned quite a few hardware sales. Yet, the fact is that the brand new 64-bit 'puter could only run on the 32-bit legacy mode, as they were shipped with a 32-bit operating system and the OEMs shipped hardware without ever thinking on releasing 64-bit drivers or even releasing the hardware specs.
So those OEMs will, once again, sell hardware that will not be usable by the user, at least as advertised. It doesn't matter to them. The only thing that matters is the sales revenue, specially in this day and age where we are starting to see sub-300 euro hardware. And screw the consumer.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
In all fairness 512meg is a reasonable about for XP, 1gig however is better. I don't see your average joe 6-pack user benefiting from more than 2gigs.
:)
After all the auto-updating software for their printer, mouse, keyboard, webcam, etc.; all the spyware, adware, trojans; and all the extra applications like AIM, anti-virus, anti-malware, non-driver device software (syncing, calling home, etc.), and media software playing music in the background, I can see joe 6-pack user making use of more than 2 gigs if he actually wants to do something with his computer.
How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. Microsoft just redefines darkness as the standard.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Well back in my day we shifted disks on an abacus and made the beeping noises ourselves! :)
Windows 32-bit operating systems really do not play well with more than 3Gb of memory. Check out what Microsoft says about it.
The address space you'd normally use to address memory beyond 3.5gigs (or thereabouts) is reassigned for talking to other stuff. It's a simple 32bit limitation - can't only be talking to the RAM after all. As others have pointed out throughout this thread, the problem does not exist in 64bit architectures.
5 years ago, nobody would have thought that we'd run into this problem at all. Remember those times? Everybody and their mum was just about getting ready to jump onto the 64Bit bandwagon with AMD charging in front. And then, while nobody (especially not AMD) was paying attention, we kinda veered off-course into a multi-core world instead and all of a sudden, people stopped caring about 64bit. After all, you had a larger net performance gain from upgrading to 2 32Bit cores than to one 64Bit one. And now, we're finally running out of address space.
The trouble is that in contemporary chipsets in 32-bit mode the upper 1G or so of physical memory overlaps with the address space for the PCI bus.
Error: password can't contain reverse spelling of ancient Chinese emperor
Remember that the 3.2-3.3 GB limit is not imposed solely on the RAM itself. The computer as a whole only has a maximum number of addressable "points." I believe that 32 bit Windows or Linux allows for a maximum number of addresses around 4 GB, so you'd think that you could use 4 GB of RAM.
Wait a moment and think it out.
Estimate that components such as your processor caches, motherboard I/O destinations, Network cards, CD/DVD drive will take up about 1/2 GB of the theoretical 4 GB. These MUST have addresses or they cannot function.
Now add in all of your vRAM (the amount of ram on your video card), that ram will also need a set of addresses. We'll estimate 256 MB of vRAM.
So now you've taken your theoretical 4 GB of ram space, subtracted 512 MB for essential system components needing addresses, subtracted 256 MB of vRAM on your video card needing addresses. So, total, you've just taken away 768 MB of your theoretical RAM limit. 4 GB (Theoretical limit) - 768 MB (used addresses by components and video card memory) = 3.25 GB of RAM. Systems with 512MBs of vRam have a 3GB limit for memory.
Now consider the slap in the face SLI 8800 GTX's would be to system addressing. They take up 768 MB of vRAM each. So that is 1536 MB of vRAM total. Now you are probably down to something like 2GB of RAM addresses available for the system.
Heh. So the point is, the world NEEDS to get it's butt over to 64-bit sometime soon. Gamers are going to start to feel the burn soon when suddenly they have no more RAM to play with while SLIing.
This applies to both Windows and Linux. 64-Bit doesn't have this limitation. The only ones implying it is a Windows problem is those like Twitter the Troll and Communist Zonk.
How many Linux engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
None. Linux lightbulbs last forever. They don't need to be changed.
Surely you should say "There's very little in this world...". Otherwise all /.ers would have girlfriends.
Nothing new here. Ubuntu 7.10 32-bit -- the latest shipping version -- only supports 3.3 Gb or so. They haven't bothered to turn on BigMem in the kernel. I upgraded two desktops and one laptop last week, all to 4 Gb of RAM, and was seriously disappointed when the BIOS showed 4 Gb but Ubuntu did NOT.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Really? Linux works flawlessly in all my light sockets. I guess the system whereby engineers ask for specs from the people who want to sell them light sockets gets the job done.
-FL
AMD and Intel both went with AMD's x86_64 architecture, back in the Pentium 4 days, before any multi-core x86 parts existed. In fact, the first multi-core x86 parts were x86_64 through and through, not any less capable of running 64-bit applications than the single core.
I'm guessing you are confused because of the Intel Core Duo line that was prominent before Core 2 released. The Intel Core line was released after 64-bit P4s not because of inherent multi-core advantages, but because they realized how the NetBurst architecture was not working out, particularly in low TDP mandated environments like laptops (where they currently were using Pentium-M now, derived from Pentium-III). They released Core in an effort to have a more consistant offering, with lower TDP and better per-clock performance, forsaking 64-bit until Core 2 (except the Xeon family, which stuck with NetBurst until 64-bit was available via Core 2). It had nothing to do with multi-core and would have played out that exact same way if it was just single cores.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.