computer question

[muzzington]

When I was reading up on RAM before getting my computer, people were saying that 4 gig is still overkill, even with Vista.

[Darren B]

It is overkill cos the 32bit version of Vista cant use the full 4 gb........just like XP cannot.
If it dont cost too much it cant hurt. I bought my last lot of DDR800 ram at $22.00 per 1Gb stick. Laptop ram is a touch over double this price for entry level Kingston ram.

[David]

Correct, only a 64 bit operating systm (like XP and Vista 64 bit versions) will actually use that much RAM, and that's assuming the program you're using is also 64 bit.

[BigPete33]

Yep, had forgotten about that!

I believe 3GB is the max usable by a 32 bit program with a 32 bit O.S. ?

whilst we're semi on the topic... are there even many programs that utilise multiple CPU cores yet? If anything needs to do that, it's a game.

[muzzington]

I don't think many, if any, utilize quad core yet.

[bennymacca]

the advantage of quad core is not that a single program will run on more than 1 core, but that 4 different programs can each be run their own single core - windows handles this

this is good, because CPU time isn't wasted by windows just doing housekeeping crap, and so it makes it a lot faster.

only really for high end engineering/CAD applications and probably games would using more than 1 core be useful.


thirdly, when u write a program in C, splitting your program into different threads allows windows to run these on different cores, so i reckon there probably is programs that run on different cores already

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[BigPete33]

did you find out how much for extra ram?

[Des]

http://www.mrgadget.com.au/catalog/prod ... f31b9002f4

Thats why the laptop is so cheap... no ram... you need another 2gb to run vista properly and thats another $500.

[Bob B]

I have a question.

What is the difference between a "Lap top" and a "note book"????