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Originally Posted by SlideFox
Looks like a great setup!!
I got a questions for ya... What do you think is a reccommended amount of RAM to run to have Vista run "smoothly? I see you have 8GB up top, but is that mainly to support the extra features you are incorporating?
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From what I have heard, I would not run less than 4GB on a dedicated Vista machine.
The catch is the way memory scales. For stability you should always run the same size and an even number of RAM modules. Which means as RAM scales, the configuration scales exponentially.
In layman terms, your stepping is something like:
512MB (1x 512 or 2x 256)
1GB (1x 1GB or 2x 512 or 4x 256)
2GB (1x 2GB or 2x 1GB or 4x 512)
4GB (2x 2GB or 4x 1GB)
8GB (4x 2GB)
You have to balance:
- Technology - Do the chips even exist? (ie: 1 8GB ram module)?
- Performance - Better to run 4 sticks of 1GB or 2 sticks 2GB?
- Capacity - Are you running enough memory?
- Stability - 4 sticks running as fast as 2 sticks is harder for the motherboard to control at higher speeds and can lead to instability (blue screens, games crashing)
I could run 4GB on a 32 bit version of Vista but it will be maxed out. Which means if it is not enough, I can't add more. I already know that 4GB is recommended and I don't like the feeling of being stuck like that.
Thus, I arrived at 8GB.
I hope this makes sense.