Laptops with 3gigs of Memory

[Easto]

I've noticed that many laptops are being sold with 3 gigs of memory. They are putting a 2gig and a 1 gig stick in the computer. Is this less than optimal? Shouldn't they be equal in size too to take advantage of the dual channel spec?

[YeOldeStonecat]

That's been my thoughts all along too...4 gigs gets the dual channel. 3 gigs better than 2, the additional 1 gig gives more advantage even in single channel mode over 2 gigs of dual channel, but why not complete the step and go with 4? I guess the cost...trying to keep margins up and prices down.

[BaLa]

What about 32 vs 64 bit.
I thought the limit on 32bit was 3 gigs.


I have Vista Home Prem. (32bit) on my laptop and it has 3 gigs of RAM.

[YeOldeStonecat]

The limit is 4 gigs total, which includes video RAM and a little for various motherboard resources. So the 32 bit OS will typically show only 3 or 3.2 or 3.5 or 3.6 gigs of RAM on a sytem with 4 gigs installed.

[Easto]

I was updating my laptop and although I picked up a 7200rpm HDD and Win7 64 bit I decided to hold off on the Memory until I see how this upgrade goes.

The chipset in the laptop only handles 4 gig of memory so after I see how things go I may just get 2 sticks of 2 gig each.

[Easto]

The HDD and Win7 upgrade seems to be working fine. Without a doubt you can feel the HDD difference up from 5400rpm. Now I'm curious about the 4 gig memory upgrade. It will have to wait for now, money's tight.

[The Dude]

My guess is it's because most of those laptops only have a 32 bit OS and they don't want to deal with the "Why does it say I only have 3.x gigs or RAM, it must be broken" questions. It's just easier to put 3 gigs in. Also I believe on some of the netbooks one stick of RAM is actually soldered onto the motherboard and you only have one slot to play with. The soldered in stick is 1 gig so the most you can ever add is 2 for a total of 3.

[CableDude]

I have 3 gigs on my laptop running Vista Home Premium (32-bit). Runs really nice.