Installed Physical Memory

[shakured]

Ive gone out and bought a new computer
Intel Core i7 Cpu
EX58-UD4 mother board
500gb hdd
650 psu
6gig ddr3 ram

So ive always ran XP but i heard from a friend that XP could only read up to 4gig of ram. So not wanting the ram to go to waste ive gone out and bought Vista Home Premium 32bit because he said vista could handle the ram.

After installation ive discovered that my installed physical memory is only 4GB Originally i thought maybe all the drivers have to be installed so i did that but still no difference. Then i googled it and ended up on vista forums, from what ive read 32bit can only handle up to 4gb but the 64bit can handle...well it didnt say a figure but just said "all of your ram"

Just wanted some clarification as to what i am reading is entirely true. And whether its worth going out and buying the 64bit edition.

Also if i did go buy the 64 bit edition is it easily enough to just install it over the top of my current 32 bit?

Cheers

 

[RonS WIN TEAM]

You are going to need a 64-bit OS to address anything over 4GB of RAM. The easiest fix here, of course, is to get a 64-bit version of Windows Vista.
The “can I simply install over…” question has a pretty simple, but not great answer of: No.
[FONT=&quot]Here’s the info directly from the MSFT site:

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]If you are currently running a 32-bit version of Windows, you can only perform an upgrade to another 32-bit version of Windows. Similarly, if you are running a 64-bit version of Windows Vista, you can only perform an upgrade to another 64-bit version of Windows Vista.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]If you want to move from a 32-bit version of Windows to a 64-bit version of Windows Vista, you'll need to back up your files and then perform a custom installation of the 64-bit version of Windows Vista. For more information, see Installing and reinstalling Windows.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]For detailed information about installing and upgrading 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows, go to Installation choices for Windows Vista (32-bit) or Installation choices for Windows Vista (64-bit) online.[/FONT]

 

[Dan12]

Just a thought,you can try windows 7 in a 64bit flavor for free:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Just follow the instructions you need burning software to burn the iso.image to a dvd,like nero.Its free for about a year i believe.There is is a 32 or 64 bit option.
Thats what im running now the 64bit version was running vista ultimate 64bit for a year previous to that,i have 4 2 gig sticks, 8 gig total of ram recognized on my pc.
Vista 32bit is limited to 4gig thats correct,you need 64bit vista or windows 7 64bit.

 

[shakured]

hmmm i see i see...

is that the only thing that 32 bit holds back? my ram? or is it not using my cpu/motherboard/graphics card etc to their full potential

 

[scorp200]

its only cant use more that 4GB ram more correctly 3.5GB or somthing like that
other things work perfect

 

[stew2]

64bit is more than just the ram issue. See this link for info:

64BIT More than just RAM