titus12 wrote:
> If Windows Vista 64-bit can use more than 8GB of memory, where can you get
> the motherboard that has more than 4 bays to install the memory chips? All
> the motherboards I have found have only 4 bays. Even if the specs. says you
> can install 8GB of memory, the memory chips comes in 1GB chips and the
> motherboard has 4 bays.
>
> Thank you;
> David
>
This package has 2x2GB unbuffered DIMMs in it for $178. Two of these
kits will fill a four slot desktop machine with 8GB total memory.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820141237
Desktops from Intel and AMD are generally limited to four slots
and consequent max 8GB of unbuffered memory.
DIMMs larger than 2GB, are either registered or fully buffered
(FBDIMMs). And those are generally on server oriented products,
using Opterons (registered DDR2) and Xeons (FBDIMMs).
If you want more than 8GB, look on
www.tyan.com. Some of their
server motherboards, only need one CPU socket occupied (although
there is room for two), and can take more than 8GB of memory.
One of the Intel boards with FBDIMMs, can take a total of 64GB
in the form of (16) 4GB fully buffered DIMMs.
Samsung has announced DDR2 memory chips (Sept.12 press release),
that will allow doubling the size of the above mentioned DIMMs.
But then the issue will be, which memory controllers support them.
And that is not a trivial thing to answer - I now hate going to
the AMD site, because for technical documentation, it is such
a wasteland. I notice in the Tyan documentation for an AMD
Opteron board I was looking at, the marketing material and the
user manual, both refused to address what the max memory might be.
So 8GB is relatively easy to do, and 16GB to 64GB might require
more financial pain and a larger box.
Also, if shopping for unbuffered memory, for a desktop platform,
you can get DDR2 memory with ECC on it. Enthusiasts and overclockers
don't like the stuff, so it is not as popular on a lot of sale
sites. But if you are serious about an 8GB sized system, it is
something to consider. The Athlon64 X2 memory controller has ECC on
the interface, but on Intel desktops, you have to check the
motherboard manual, to see if ECC is supported. Mature boards
with the 975X chipset support ECC, and in the next couple weeks,
Intel's next generation of ECC capable chipset (X38) will arrive.
(A note I read, says X38 officially supports DDR3, and unofficially
supports DDR2, and some motherboard makers are shipping their
motherboards with DDR2 sockets. Since there is no DDR3 ECC
unbuffered memory to be seen, early adopters should buy the
DDR2 version instead.)
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs.aspx?IMODULE=CT2KIT25672AA667
"Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6: An early look at X38" -- should be ECC capable
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3077&p=1
Paul