2Gb Vs. 4Gb loadout

[FreedomEclipse]

Ladies, gents & grim reapers of the damned.....


being one of the only 'tech heads' in the family, i was recently asked to look for a laptop for a cousinof mine who was looking for a cost effective, portable, powerful laptop for uni.

this laptop was to handle all his work & entertainment as he is givign his desktop pc away so this laptop is going to become more or less a desktop replacement for him

the processor is a Core 2 Duo (mobile) 1.73Ghz & it already comes with 2Gb 667 ram as standard.

now the question he asked me (as he did have a lot of money to throw away) would there be any point it upgrading the 2Gb ram to 4Gb??

I told him that i didnt really know as having 4Gb on a laptop was more a luxury then anything else usually reserved for somebody with more money then brain cells,

ive heard of 4Gb going into a desktop but i never actually seen anybody with that amount of ram first hand so i know nothing of all the performance benefits that 4Gb has over 2Gb.

so my question would be....

would there be a serious boost in performance after installing 4Gb?

his graphics card is also a hypermem so when he decides to game theres enough for his graphics to feed off without effecting the overall performance of his laptop.

but its either 4Gb ram or a CPU upgrade to 2Ghz. I said that the 2Ghz upgrade would be a better idea.

[DOM]

as he did have a lot of money to throw away

If that the case I would get a faster CPU and how much more is the extra 2GB's

[tigger]

unless he's running a 64bit os,i'd say go for the cpu upgrade.

[panchoman]

you can run 4 gigs of ram with a 32 bit os. google PAE (physical address extension). i would say get a new cpu before you get more ram.

[FreedomEclipse]

the shop were going to get the laptop from may get a little grumpy that were asking them to order a processor in as they dont stock them & they may jut say the laptop is for sale 'as is' but obviously ram is much easier to get & install.

I can do both but the problem is weather the shop is willing to put the CPU on order. my cousin just wanted a laptop with minimal fuss. so the options are if the CANT order it in then we will go for 4Gb ram but if they CAN then obviously we will go for the CPU.


is there much performance diff between 2Gb & 4Gb ram???

[ktr]

I would double check the laptop to see if it can support 4gb. Most that i have seen can only support up to 2gb. And some of the newer ones can only go to 3gb. The only ones i have seen that can support a full 4gb are those behemoth 17in ones.

[FreedomEclipse]

I would double check the laptop to see if it can support 4gb. Most that i have seen can only support up to 2gb. And some of the newer ones can only go to 3gb. The only ones i have seen that can support a full 4gb are those behemoth 17in ones.

already done. his chipset is a Intel 945GM (or PM) series & it supports 4Gb so the intel website says.

I think the reason why nobodys actually loaded 4Gb into their laptop is no doubt because of the costs of the 2Gb modules

[ktr]

you can run 4 gigs of ram with a 32 bit os. google PAE (physical address extension). i would say get a new cpu before you get more ram.

PAE aye? I googled it and it says that to enable this, you need a cpu that can support this PAE(seems like all intel since the pentium pro supported it), how do you confirm this AMD cpus. According to wiki, some amd does support PAE. I have 4gb, and windows only sees 3gb...

[devguy]

PAE aye? I googled it and it says that to enable this, you need a cpu that can support this PAE(seems like all intel since the pentium pro supported it), how do you confirm this AMD cpus. According to wiki, some amd does support PAE. I have 4gb, and windows only sees 3gb...

You have listed in your specs Windows MCE 2005, which is a Microsoft OS that doesn't have an x64 version (like xp home). To allow your system to use 4GB of ram, you'll need to be running an x64 OS (or have software address extending like in high end versions of 2k or 2k3). So for your buddy, if he isn't using an x64 operating system, don't bother with the extra 2GB of Ram, He'd notice almost no difference. However a cpu increase from 1.73Ghz to 2.0Ghz would also be extremely minimal. I'd advise he save his money, or if he's dead set on spending it, look into a nice sound card or even, dare I say it, a date...

[ktr]

You have listed in your specs Windows MCE 2005, which is a Microsoft OS that doesn't have an x64 version (like xp home). To allow your system to use 4GB of ram, you'll need to be running an x64 OS (or have software address extending like in high end versions of 2k or 2k3). So for your buddy, if he isn't using an x64 operating system, don't bother with the extra 2GB of Ram, He'd notice almost no difference. However a cpu increase from 1.73Ghz to 2.0Ghz would also be extremely minimal. I'd advise he save his money, or if he's dead set on spending it, look into a nice sound card or even, dare I say it, a date...

What is PAE?

Physical Address Extension (PAE) refers to a feature of x86 processors that allows for up to 64 Gigabytes (GB) of physical memory to be used in 32-bit systems, given appropriate operating system support. PAE is provided by Intel Pentium Pro and above CPUs (including all later Pentium-series processors except the 400 MHz bus versions on the Pentium M), as well as by some compatible processors such as those from AMD. The CPUID flag PAE is assigned for the purpose of identifying CPUs with this capability.

Is XP a appropriate OS?

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx

Windows XP (all versions) --- Maximum 4 GB of physical RAM*


* Total physical address space is limited to 4 GB on these versions of Windows.

I dont know wtf are you talking about and who's buddy your referring to. I understand that 64bit os is required to address 4gb, but with PAE enabled you can address the 4 in a 32bit os. All i asked is how do you tell if an amd cpu of what ever can support PAE.


edit: done some reading, if you see PAE in system prop, then you can enable it and run a full 4gb in a 32bit XP. Will do this when i get home.

[devguy]

I dont know wtf are you talking about and who's buddy your referring to. I understand that 64bit os is required to address 4gb, but with PAE enabled you can address the 4 in a 32bit os. All i asked is how do you tell if an amd cpu of what ever can support PAE.


Hmm, wasn't aware that xp supported those as well. And the "buddy" is the original poster's cousin.

Here's (http://blogs.technet.com/mattmcspirit/archive/2007/08/29/the-one-about-xp-vista-and-the-4gb-ram.aspx) some other good stuff:

There is another solution to upgrading to an x64 OS - the PAE hack. I say hack, as it's not the most recommended solution, but it does work. Doug continues "To overcome the 32-bit limitation, recent x86 CPUs (Pentium Pro and later) have 36 address pins and can address 64 GB of RAM. The original design of the x86 32-bit protected mode only provided access to 32-bit addresses, so PAE (Physical Address Extensions) mode was created to allow access to 36-bit addresses." So, PAE is the answer? Well, not always. PAE can only access 64 GB of memory if all 36 address pins are properly wired up on the motherboard, which isn't always the case.

So, the moral of the story is, to address that full 4GB, you can take a risk, which for many people, pay's off fine, and go with the PAE extension, or you could upgrade to an x64 OS, which can take advantage of the full del monte. That's exactly what I'm doing, with x64 versions of Server 2003, Vista and Server 2008.

Therefore it'd be advisable for the original poster to check if this "hack" would work with his laptop board.

[bassmasta]

I wouldn't. from what I know, PAE will change the way ram is operated, effectively turning 800 into 667

[panchoman]

pae works with most all 64bit cpu's i believe, i very much doubt it causes the ram to run slower. all pae does is tell the cpu to use all 4 gigs of ram, a 32bit os will not detect that all 4 gigs of ram are in use but the ram will be in use by the cpu and benchmarks have proven that pae works.

[Morgoth]

What is PAE?



Is XP a appropriate OS?

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEdrv.mspx



I dont know wtf are you talking about and who's buddy your referring to. I understand that 64bit os is required to address 4gb, but with PAE enabled you can address the 4 in a 32bit os. All i asked is how do you tell if an amd cpu of what ever can support PAE.


edit: done some reading, if you see PAE in system prop, then you can enable it and run a full 4gb in a 32bit XP. Will do this when i get home.

and can you show me where i can find that PAE option?

[tigger]

right click my computer select properties,to see if its running pae or not.to enable it,see pic.

[ktr]

From what i have read, if you have a AMD64, or a EMT64 (or any old intel from pentium pro and beyond)...and in combination with sp2, PAE is enable on default.

So if you right click my computer, then properties, and you see Physical blah blah under memory, then it is enabled.

[Fizban]

I'm sure it can support 4 GB, it was an option with mine, which came with 1, 2 or 4 GB (I got 2, I have more brain cells than money), but yeah cpu > RAM the 1.78 GHz Duo Core 2 is a good processor don't get me wrong, but my 2.0 GHz Duo Core 2'd smoke it, and I'd have went to the 2.33 Duo before upping RAM as that'd still be a better value.