Vista quad core with 2 gig ram ??????????

**worf51** · #1 8th Sep 2008, 22:16

hi guys,i have a amd phenom 9550 quad core 64 bit with vista premium & 2 gig ram,i have read a lot on the net that it needs at least 4 gig,any suggestions about it please.

**Spencer2004** · #2 9th Sep 2008, 00:17

depends, 2gb is allright for a standard setup but 4gb will be well worth the money as it will eliminate any use of the pagefile on your hard drive thus eliminating slowdowns completely. also renember graphics cards use allot of system ram so more ram helps with powerfull and multiple graphics cards. however this is nothing to do with the phenom

**philthomas** · #3 9th Sep 2008, 02:40

If you are running 32bit Vista, Windows will only see about 3.25gb of 4gb Ram.
It will only be fully utilised by a 64bit OS (XP or Vista).

**Carbon** · #4 9th Sep 2008, 04:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spencer2004

also renember graphics cards use allot of system ram

Uh, no they don't. That's sort of the point of VRAM. Using system RAM would introduce a hell of a lot of latency for video cards, especially in modern games where textures are swapped out constantly.

You might be thinking of integrated controllers but no, the system RAM is not something the video card touches.

**Spencer2004** · #5 9th Sep 2008, 08:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Carbon

Uh, no they don't. That's sort of the point of VRAM. Using system RAM would introduce a hell of a lot of latency for video cards, especially in modern games where textures are swapped out constantly.

You might be thinking of integrated controllers but no, the system RAM is not something the video card touches.

and ur 100%? because i swear that graphics cards use system ram as some sort of cache, im not just talking about that hypermemory crap that you get with cheap graphics cards. i think this is a vista thing though.

**serverguy** · #6 9th Sep 2008, 11:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spencer2004

and ur 100%? because i swear that graphics cards use system ram as some sort of cache, im not just talking about that hypermemory crap that you get with cheap graphics cards. i think this is a vista thing though.

No, the video card does not use system RAM. Ever.

What you might be thinking is that Vista (and XP for that matter, in fact most 32 bit OSs) trests graphics card RAM as system RAM, therefore lowering the ammount of system RAM it can actually ustilise and report.

64 bit OSs do not suffer from this problem.

**Spencer2004** · #7 9th Sep 2008, 13:10

mabey i heard wrong then, soz 4 doubting u

**serverguy** · #8 9th Sep 2008, 13:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spencer2004

mabey i heard wrong then, soz 4 doubting u

No problems. We all have to start somewhere.

**worf51** · #9 10th Sep 2008, 15:24

thanks guys for getting back to me,but i am still no better off,can someone please tell me if my pc will run better with 4 gig than with 2 gig thank you

**philthomas** · #10 10th Sep 2008, 15:35

If you are using a 32bit OS, as mentioned, you will not be able to utilise 4GB.
If you are running CPU intensive programs/games, you may notice a slight difference .... depends what your running.

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