I understand the 4 GB limit with 32 bit systems. However 64 bit OSes are not uncommon these days. However still motherboards have, for the past several years, seem to have been stuck at 4, and some 8 GB. Similarly, the option for memory modules seems anemic. I found a few MB that claim to support 16 GB, but there's virtually no options for 4GB modules.

It would seem for the past 3-4 years larger memory growth has stopped or is this just me?

You want to see 32GB+ max? Look into server mobos.

servers are the only ones that can really take advantage of such amount of memory, and no, memory growth haven´t stopped, 3 years ago you ever would n´t consider to have more than 1 gig of ram, and prices were excessive.

You have to consider that in the last 2 years ram prices have plummeted to record lows ..... I mean now you can buy 2gb of ram for around 40$cad. That means 0.02¢ / mb. At those prices it is not uncommon to find people sticking 4gb or more in their pc's.

If ram prices would have kept going down at the normal rate you would have to pay much more for the same 2gb. I think it is more a question of memory being sold at ridiculously low prices than mobo makers not keeping up.

As a side note, I once payed 600$ to upgrade a pc from 4 to 12 mb of ram !!

With a 32bit OS, 2GB RAM is more than enough; and, depending on what apps you run you can have a minimally sized page file, 1GB at most.

With a 64bit OS, 4GB RAM is the sweet spot, believe it or not 4GB RAM is a lot! Running WinXP 64bit and having 4GB RAM, you can shut off/disable the page file and still have plenty of memory; again depending on what apps you run. Vista 64bit has a bit more overhead than WinXP 64bit, so having a page file might make a difference, but even then 2GB at most I would think.

While it may seem that memory growth has stopped, it really hasn't. It's more that enthusiasts/industry has realized that there isn't as much to be gained going from 2GB to 4GB unless you actually run memory intensive applications. Back in the day, going from 256MB to 512MB RAM made all the difference in the world, but not as much anymore. Heck, about three years ago 2GB modules were just hitting the market, let alone 4 and 8 GB modules.

Moving forward as applications become more multithreaded and actually use four or more cores, then larger than 4GB of memory may actually become the norm, but until then...

For kicks and giggles, if you run a 32bit OS and have 2GB RAM, disable the page file and use the machine as normal and see if you notice a performance difference. Gaming, encoding and decoding audio/video, or DVD authoring may take the most noticeable performance hit. But if you just surf, run office apps, and play minimal games, chances are you'll barely notice the fact that the page file is disabled.

I presume you are speaking as a consumer rather than from a server-side perspective, since much larger capabilities/capacities have been available to the professional/business world for quite some time.

So, I'll give a consumer based view:

I feel the root of the situation is in several parts - The first is that, while 64 bit computing is clearly the fastest growing segment of the desktop, when you look at the segment as a whole it's still a small percentage of the overall.

The second is that it takes a few years for software to catch up. The huge majority of apps on the market today are still 32 bit, designed to run on 32 bot OS's, and therefore generally keep within 32bit limitations. About the most you may see is that newer games have Large_Address_Aware capabilities. Not a bad thing - Even if a game "only" goes from being able to use 2GB to 3GB, that's still a pretty massive 50% increase. What's a development cycle for a game? 2 years, or thereabouts.

But when you have 8GB installed, (I do), then the application is still not anywhere near approaching the limitations of your computer. You'd have to run multiple memory intensive apps in order to take advantage. Something like Gaming, encoding video (or 3) in the background, plus your mail, browser, ICQ/Chat, VoIP program, and playing music, plus a little F@H for the icing on the cake... all at once...

Power Users may do stuff like that, but the great majority of users stop somewhere areound game/mail/browser and leave it at that. So there's not a lot of demand for truly rude amounts of RAM on the desktop at the moment. Though it's clearly coming.

Rather, In My Humble Opinion, much of the the impetus to move to a 64 bit OS isn't sop much RAM related as it is GPU related - 512MB has become almost a 'standard' config for video memory. More serious gamers will push 1GB on a (260/280... 4870... x2 cards) single video card, and the truly rabid will use 2GB and more for CrossfireX and 3 way SLI.

That is an awful lot of memory mapped I/O, and on a 32 bit OS you'll reach addressing limitations very very quickly. Take the needed 500~750MB just to run the system add 1GB for your UberCardOfTheWeek and you're stuck at about 2GB of RAM at a time where the newer games you want to run on your awesome GPU can make use of more than 2 gig of memory. And if you want some RAM to do things like... you know.... run the rest of your computer, then you need an OS that can provide the necessary address space. That means 64 bits.


my $0,02, anyways