Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
haveaccessto3.5GiB.However,onanewersystemwithtwoormorePCIex16slots,and
especiallywithtwoormorehigh-endPCIExpressvideocardsinstalled,youmaydropthe
usable limit to something close to 2GiB.
When running 32-bit editions of Windows, I used to recommend installing a maximum of
3GB RAM, because most if not all of the fourth GB is unusable. However, on systems
that support dual-channel memory, it is usually cheaper to install two 2GB modules to get
4GB than it is to install two 1GB modules and two 512MB to get 3GB. On desktop sys-
temsthatsupportdual-channelmemory,youwouldnotwanttoinstallthree1GBmodules
because in that case not all the memory would run in dual-channel mode.
