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[cem_devecioglu]

imo prof or ultimate editions are better
please check the table at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions

Handy table. So, still limited to 4Gb with the 32 bit version.   

Will it at least use PAE to give to you the whole 4GB? Otherwise, with holes for the peripherals, it's not really worth having over 3GB physical RAM.

Not worth the overhead and potential hassles of running 64 bit unless 4GB is a real limitation, IMHO. If they hadn't crippled it that would be 4GB per process address space, of course.

Kevin

if you use a solid state c driver then no need for physical ram over 4gb as your virtual memory is nearly same speed (I do ignore context switching time which is minimal)

by the way still there are not many softwares for 64 bit.. :-/

[cem_devecioglu]

What makes use of more than 3.25gb of ram on 64 bit windows.
I will soon be building a PC that will have to cope with a hell of a lot of printing and scanning and will have a sheet feed scanner added to it.  Would this benifit from 6gb or even 12gb of ram?

compare 2³² with 2⁶⁴ memory addressing..

scanners wont benefit that as their drivers and software mostly designed for minimal memory usage

and for scanners I will recommend some brands later I dont remember now and need to rush for train

[Kevin Wood]

What makes use of more than 3.25gb of ram on 64 bit windows.
I will soon be building a PC that will have to cope with a hell of a lot of printing and scanning and will have a sheet feed scanner added to it.  Would this benifit from 6gb or even 12gb of ram?

compare 2³² with 2⁶⁴ memory addressing..

scanners wont benefit that as their drivers and software mostly designed for minimal memory usage

and for scanners I will recommend some brands later I dont remember now and need to rush for train

I wouldn't say there's a compelling reason to exceed 4GB ram and 32 bit windows for most usage at the moment. Whilst 64 bit is becoming more prevalent you will still inflict pain upon yourself by going that route finding drivers that work and solving niggles with existing software which you might want to run (we don't always run the latest versions of stuff). Not to mention that 64 bit software is inherently more resource hungry anyway, so for the first GB or two above 4GB and an enforced move to 64 bit windows you are probably running to stand still.

Stick to 32 bit, 4GB memory, find out how to enable PAE if it isn't by default these days so you can actually use all 4GB.

A look at the resource usage of this ubuntu machine (admittedly it's bored. I have firefox with a couple of tabs open but that's what it does most of the time ). 290MB/4Gb used.

Kevin

[Plomien]

What makes use of more than 3.25gb of ram on 64 bit windows.
I will soon be building a PC that will have to cope with a hell of a lot of printing and scanning and will have a sheet feed scanner added to it.  Would this benifit from 6gb or even 12gb of ram?

compare 2³² with 2⁶⁴ memory addressing..

scanners wont benefit that as their drivers and software mostly designed for minimal memory usage

and for scanners I will recommend some brands later I dont remember now and need to rush for train

I wouldn't say there's a compelling reason to exceed 4GB ram and 32 bit windows for most usage at the moment. Whilst 64 bit is becoming more prevalent you will still inflict pain upon yourself by going that route finding drivers that work and solving niggles with existing software which you might want to run (we don't always run the latest versions of stuff). Not to mention that 64 bit software is inherently more resource hungry anyway, so for the first GB or two above 4GB and an enforced move to 64 bit windows you are probably running to stand still.

Stick to 32 bit, 4GB memory, find out how to enable PAE if it isn't by default these days so you can actually use all 4GB.

A look at the resource usage of this ubuntu machine (admittedly it's bored. I have firefox with a couple of tabs open but that's what it does most of the time ). 290MB/4Gb used.

Kevin

if you get professional you have the built in virtual Win XP which negates the need for 32 bit as any driver issues you run in virtual mode

[cem_devecioglu]

What makes use of more than 3.25gb of ram on 64 bit windows.
I will soon be building a PC that will have to cope with a hell of a lot of printing and scanning and will have a sheet feed scanner added to it.  Would this benifit from 6gb or even 12gb of ram?

compare 2³² with 2⁶⁴ memory addressing..

scanners wont benefit that as their drivers and software mostly designed for minimal memory usage

and for scanners I will recommend some brands later I dont remember now and need to rush for train

I wouldn't say there's a compelling reason to exceed 4GB ram and 32 bit windows for most usage at the moment. Whilst 64 bit is becoming more prevalent you will still inflict pain upon yourself by going that route finding drivers that work and solving niggles with existing software which you might want to run (we don't always run the latest versions of stuff). Not to mention that 64 bit software is inherently more resource hungry anyway, so for the first GB or two above 4GB and an enforced move to 64 bit windows you are probably running to stand still.

Stick to 32 bit, 4GB memory, find out how to enable PAE if it isn't by default these days so you can actually use all 4GB.

A look at the resource usage of this ubuntu machine (admittedly it's bored. I have firefox with a couple of tabs open but that's what it does most of the time ). 290MB/4Gb used.

Kevin

I remember long long years ago we were discussing why Dos is not enough and we have to use 32 bit processors and windows 

and from programmers point of view passing from dos to windows was really hard.. you had to use object oriented as windows programming included hard unusual things for that time compared to dos and many many lines of extra code.. :-/

[Marks DTM Calib]

I need to dive a HD monitor (2 inch widescreen).

I will use the Media centre functions

The odd bit of video editing

Some games.


Hence the Dell machine.

It has:

Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 870 (2.93GHz, 8MB)
Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit- English
Graphics Card - Single 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTS 240
6144MB (2x2GB) (2x1GB)1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory
1TB Serial ATA (7200RPM) Hard Drive
DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD)

So seems a pretty major spec.

[Marks DTM Calib]

whats the evalue code of the one your looking at?

one thing that crossed my mind...do you still need a real serial port, or will laptop / adaptors fit that requirement? 

The evalue code was:

D00X8108

[Shimmy]

I need to dive a HD monitor (2 inch widescreen).

I will use the Media centre functions

The odd bit of video editing

Some games.


Hence the Dell machine.

It has:

Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 870 (2.93GHz, 8MB)
Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit- English
Graphics Card - Single 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTS 240
6144MB (2x2GB) (2x1GB)1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory
1TB Serial ATA (7200RPM) Hard Drive
DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD)

So seems a pretty major spec.

The spec seems nice enough.  The major limiting component there is the graphics card though.

In your position I would still build my own pc.  6GB of ram probably isn't needed, 4GB should be more than enough.  I manage with 2GB and have multiple programs open and a browser with 20+ tabs open.

[Marks DTM Calib]

I need to dive a HD monitor (2 inch widescreen).

I will use the Media centre functions

The odd bit of video editing

Some games.


Hence the Dell machine.

It has:

Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 870 (2.93GHz, 8MB)
Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit- English
Graphics Card - Single 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTS 240
6144MB (2x2GB) (2x1GB)1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory
1TB Serial ATA (7200RPM) Hard Drive
DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD)

So seems a pretty major spec.

The spec seems nice enough.  The major limiting component there is the graphics card though.

In your position I would still build my own pc.  6GB of ram probably isn't needed, 4GB should be more than enough.  I manage with 2GB and have multiple programs open and a browser with 20+ tabs open.

To be honest, I cant be arsed.

Its not like I am going to save anything either. 

[Marks DTM Calib]

Actualy, in reality, I would not know where to start these days on building a machine as I am very out of touch with what is the best components.

I would need everything as keyboard is well wron, mouse is playing up (and I do want another wireless mouse). The only thing that might be of use is the SATA 500MB Samsung HD

[cem_devecioglu]

may be useful..
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/

[Mr Skrunts]

As we all know, if you dont get a decent motherboard/bios  then system performance /balance/reliabiluty id poor from the start.

The main thing I would question is the 6gb of ram, if the board supports tripple channel (as most do these days) then I thought they would have utilised it and fitted 3 x 3gb.

Allways been nicely balanced PC's on the XPS range.

Decent enough spec though.   

[Taxi_Driver]

The only thing i would suggest on pc's when you start using large hdd's is use a mobo that can hardware support raid.
Even tho my mobo is fairly old, it can support raid0,1....so i have 2x sata 1TB HD's in it with the mobo running raid1. (And a seperate sata 160GB for boot and installed progs, not mirrored)

Reason for......how do you cheaply backup 1TB of data (not that i have that much disc used).....if one disc pops its clogs.....i havent lost any data, that would be difficult to replace (ie photo's/etc)

[TheBoy]

Kevin Wood - most desktop motherboards cannot do PAE. Generally, desktop based OS cannot either (not specifically checked Vista or Win7 to be honest), as you are not really ever going to gain on what is a single user system.  Linux can though .  64bit does start to become more useful as you go beyond 4Gb, and with Win7, 64bit generally has good driver support.


MDTM - I am guessing your needs aren't major, you just want something a little more up to date, and something that will last your for 2 or 3yrs.  In which case, I wouldn't get too hung up on memory, unless you are going to be doing masses of video editing.  Its always easy to add later.


My own desktop, probably 3yrs old now, is a Dell 9200, Core2 Quad, 965 chipset, 2Gb RAM, and a pair of 320Gb HDD in RAID0.  Its more than quick enough for most uses.


If you are going to use for heavy Media Center use, you need a huge HDD. My MCE has a 1.5Tb HDD, and it's crammed full.



If you go for the Dell, I think its 7% cashback via Topcashback, and Crucial (my preferred memory supplier is on topcashback). If you haven't got a cashback site, or get annoyed with Quidco's £5 annual fee, try topcashback, which is free.

If you sign up (free) to topcashback via my link (http://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/theboy) you get £2 just for signing up (I should add, I get £3), this offer expires at end of 1st Nov.

[TheBoy]

Another option is to buy a cheaper PC now, eg Core2 Duo class machine, and replace it sooner, say in 2yrs, and buy another cheaper one then. Over time, this normally works out cheaper, and also I'm sure the kids could use the cast-offs...

I just bought a (Dell) Core2 Duo 2.9Ghz, 2G RAM Vostro from £330 delivered (less when the cashback comes in ) for her folks