Dell System with Useless Memory
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In my e-mail this morning was a flier from Costco. I have to go buy some stuff there this morning, so I read it and noticed a Dell desktop computer among the items. Note that the Costco links above probably have a short lifetime, so if you're reading this weeks after the posting date (9/20/2008), they won't work. What immediately struck me about the newsletter was that it said that the system had 4GB of RAM. As I discussed in my recent column on when Windows goes all 64-bit, in 32-bit versions of Windows at most 3.1GB to 3.5GB of RAM are usable, probably more like the 3.1 number. You need 64-bit Windows to use all of the memory. Was Costco selling a Win64 system? Nope, the ad says it has "Microsoft® Windows® Vista Home Premium 32-bit." Beware of this sort of thing. It's not a lot of wasted money, but it's still a waste. I suspect it will become more of an issue over time as vendors try, as they always do, to beef up computers and run up against this wall. |
Comments (14)
Your theory has one flaw. The memory between 3.2 and 4GB that Windows OS won't access directly can be used by the onboard video. This keeps your display adapter from reserving memory that the OS can use outright.
Of course this only applies to systems with integrated graphics. What is the Dell's configuration?
Posted by Bill Brock | September 20, 2008 8:14 AM
I don't believe you're right about that. Video memory has to be OS-addressable.
Posted by Larry Seltzer | September 20, 2008 8:16 AM
Or more specifically, shared system video memory (which this would have to be if the system is advertised as having 4GB memory) would have to be OS-addressable.
Posted by Larry Seltzer | September 20, 2008 8:18 AM
Your theory has one flaw. The memory between 3.2 and 4GB that Windows OS won't access directly can be used by the onboard video. This keeps your display adapter from reserving memory that the OS can use outright.
Of course this only applies to systems with integrated graphics. What is the Dell's configuration?
Posted by Bill Brock | September 20, 2008 8:28 AM
According to the ad, it's "Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100"
Posted by Larry Seltzer | September 20, 2008 9:44 AM
Here is a vote for Bill Brock's interpretation.
Below is what HP says about the 32-bit version of Windows XP. My understanding is that Vista uses memory the same way:
"Microsoft Windows XP Professional, designed as a 32-bit OS, supports an address range of up to 4 GB for virtual memory addresses and up to 4 GB for physical memory addresses. Because the physical memory addresses are sub-divided to manage both the computer’s PCI memory address range (also known as MMIO) and RAM, the amount of available RAM is always less than 4 GB.
The PCI memory addresses starting down from 4 GB are used for things like the BIOS, IO cards, networking, PCI hubs, bus bridges, PCI-Express, and video/graphics cards."
A chart shows PCI memory address range starting at 3-3.4MB and going up to 4MB.
Posted by Tom1 | September 20, 2008 10:00 AM
Even if Bill's right, according to this Intel brochure the 3100 maxes out at 256MB RAM. There's still some waste.
I'm looking into this further, thanks for challenging me on it.
Posted by Larry Seltzer | September 20, 2008 10:07 AM
I clicking on this article because i thought it might be funny. It was!!!
How much cost are we really talking about wasting?
The retail cost of this extra 1gb chip is about 30$ and if you go to a more nerdy place like Newegg you’ll find it even cheaper. Now because dell does shop at Newegg I have to assume that they get this for dollars maybe less than 15$.
So all said and done, does it really matter that there might be .8gb left that is unused?
If we apply this same line of thinking to the HD market I think we would laugh, what is the percentage of unused disk space for residential pc's. Even more fun for math people, how much energy does this correlate to for wasted "cool mega disk space" that won’t be used...ever.
Thanks for the article; it made me think about a couple of things differently than I would normal.
John
Posted by john | September 20, 2008 4:41 PM
Granted, if the card only uses 256 MB then there may be a small amout of unused RAM. But putting 4GB allows Windows to use all it can. With 3GB the Video adapter will be grabbing memory that the kernel could use.
Posted by Bill Brock | September 21, 2008 9:24 AM
And it's probably a 64-bit processor to boot. What a waste.
Why not use a proper 64-bit OS with full 64-bit apps and 64-bit drivers? Looks like only open-source systems can offer all that...
Posted by Lawrence D'Oliveiro | September 22, 2008 5:34 AM
I would rather vendors fill the machine with 1gb dimms than 4 512mb. Besides the form factor may require that the memory be in pairs. This machine may not always have a 32bit os it is better for the consumer to have the extra .8gb now than to buy it later.
64bit windows os was not well receieved after all the issues with xp64. I now run Vista and workstation 2008 as 64bit. Drivers and software seem to work well with x64.
Posted by mzerach | September 22, 2008 9:26 AM
Ditto to the comment about requirement for same size modules - when I ordered my new 1520 (with XP) last year an overenthusiastic Dell sales rep offered a 3rd gig. A little research, confirmed by Dell's second level support, confirmed that I had to go either 2 gig or 4 gig with identical modules. A third gig would add nothing.
Posted by Forone | September 22, 2008 11:23 AM
Should add to above, paired module requirement was for Core 2 Duo.
Posted by Forone | September 22, 2008 11:25 AM
You could do 2 x 2GB modules = 4GB or 2 x 1GB and 2 x 512MB modules = 3GB. 'Basically' the same useable amount of RAM. Depending on what brand is used, often right now the 2 x 2GB is cheaper. No disadvantage to doing so although it may/not ever be used.
Posted by Terry | September 22, 2008 3:05 PM