RAM Question

kinggeorge1987

Silly for most of you I know, so I will just throw the question out there with my answer and someone out there give me a right or wrong, that way I dont look like I'm begging for answers.

Real simply:
What is the part(s) of a system that dictate the maximum amount of RAM that can be installed.

I THINK, it is the chip set, and the front-side bus. Isn't it ? The chip-set is what 'grabs' information from the memory, and the front-side bus can only go a certain speed.

I'm sorry but I couldn't locate the paragraph in my A+ study guide and it's starting to wear me down. Just thought Id ask.

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eMeS

kinggeorge1987 wrote: »

Silly for most of you I know, so I will just throw the question out there with my answer and someone out there give me a right or wrong, that way I dont look like I'm begging for answers.

Real simply:
What is the part(s) of a system that dictate the maximum amount of RAM that can be installed.

I THINK, it is the chip set, and the front-side bus. Isn't it ? The chip-set is what 'grabs' information from the memory, and the front-side bus can only go a certain speed.

I'm sorry but I couldn't locate the paragraph in my A+ study guide and it's starting to wear me down. Just thought Id ask.

I have no idea what the book says, nor any idea how they might test you on this, but I'm gonna say it would be the chipset first. The capabilities of the chipset could be further limited by the BIOS, and then the specific OS might have its own limitations.

You could also have a physical limitation simply from the design of the motherboard, e.g., number of slots for memory.

MS

Devilsbane

eMeS wrote: »

I have no idea what the book says, nor any idea how they might test you on this, but I'm gonna say it would be the chipset first. The capabilities of the chipset could be further limited by the BIOS, and then the specific OS might have its own limitations.

You could also have a physical limitation simply from the design of the motherboard, e.g., number of slots for memory.

MS

What he said.

Cisco Inferno

theres a multitude of things that can limit ram capacity.
one such that used to but really isnt of concern nowadays is the operating system. 32bit windows can only address up to 3.75-4gb but windows 7 64bit can address up to 192gb of memory and thats alot for desktop use! you cant even imagine that any time soon. so for 64bit systems we can rule that out.

now say even if a northbridge and cpu can work with that much memory. it all comes down to physical limitations such as available slots and most importantly, Ram density and how much each IC on a module can hold. ie, we're not gonna have 64gb ram sticks any time soon.

moreover on server boards they have plenty of ram slots. hows 18 sound?
Newegg.com - SUPERMICRO MBD-X8DAH+-O Dual LGA 1366 Intel 5520 Extended ATX Dual Intel Xeon 5500 and 5600 Series Server Motherboard
18x8gb=144gb. and i bet a bios update could help address more ram if larger density ram comes out. 16gbx18=288gb!? quite expensive though ha.

overall id say it comes to physical limitations along with chipset and cpu properties.
and not operating system.

Fugazi1000

There is no definitive answer, without more clarity/information.

For A+ my guess is the OS would be considered the limiting factor, especially considering the 32bit variants as mentioned above and the fact that commonly available hardware has broken the 4GB barrier quite some time ago. People do buy 4/8GB RAM machines, run XP x86 and wonder why they can only see 3GB reported.