The Memory Limit of 128-bit CPUs

[AtomicSpark]

128-bit CPUs would allow 274,877,906,944 yottabytes of memory.

1 yottabyte is 10^24 or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.

So, we end up with 2.74877906944 x 10^35 bytes. For the non-scientifics in here, that's 274,877,906,944,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes.

To put that into today's common use, an 128-bit processor would allow 256,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 GiB of RAM.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/128-bit and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yottabyte

 

[Pesmerga]

Can play Crysis on High at 35fps

 

[AtomicSpark]

Your current 64-bit processor can handle 17,179,869,184 GiB. I think you're fine for now.

 

[DEATH eVADER]

It all depends on the OS

 

[DreamThrall]

Can play Crysis on High at 35fps

It's funny that over a year later, people are still making [accurate] jokes about that game's performance.

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

Not really, my $550 PC can run Crysis on all high, 1680x1050 at 25-30 fps.

 

[Krynn72]

So... yes really? Its still a shit frame rate.

 

[Sir Phoenixx]

How is running Crysis at almost 30 FPS shit for a cheap PC around $550 (that includes Vista Premium, the ATX case, and everything inside it, and S&H)? The jokes were that you'd need to buy a expensive super computer to be able to play, when you can now just buy/make a cheap PC and play Crysis with a good resolution, on all high at a decent FPS.

 

[Raziaar]

So this is different than the whole Windows 32 bit can only handle 3.5 gb of memory?

If not... that is such an astronomical difference between 32 bit and 64 bit!

 

[AtomicSpark]

Yes. There is a difference between maximum theoretical memory and what they cap the OS at.

 

[lePobz]

All you need is 'enough' memory. There would be no performance advantage between a PC with 4gb system memory and one with 4,000,000,000,000gb memory.

You can have a system with 96 processor cores (16 6-core Intel Xeon CPUs) and 256GB of memory today but without the software written to use any of it, you will see absolutely no advantage.

So, dream on.

 

[Raziaar]

All you need is 'enough' memory. There would be no performance advantage between a PC with 4gb system memory and one with 4,000,000,000,000gb memory.

You can have a system with 96 processor cores (16 6-core Intel Xeon CPUs) and 256GB of memory today but without the software written to use any of it, you will see absolutely no advantage.

So, dream on.

Silly man. It won't be for personal use. It'll be for robots!

 

[PvtRyan]

All you need is 'enough' memory. There would be no performance advantage between a PC with 4gb system memory and one with 4,000,000,000,000gb memory.

You can have a system with 96 processor cores (16 6-core Intel Xeon CPUs) and 256GB of memory today but without the software written to use any of it, you will see absolutely no advantage.

So, dream on.

Using 8 GB atm and there's definitely advantages to having no page file on the HDD at all. Vista is currently using about 2 GB of memory and that's not because Vista is a memory hog (it's not) but because it can afford to SuperFetch a lot of stuff with 8 GB available. You couldn't really afford your OS to take 2 GB with just 4 GB total.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

You running 64 bit Vista Ryan? I'm running 32bit, and so I've not bothered jumping to 4gb of RAM. I'm running 2gb of pretty decent / fast RAM and haven't found any need to make the leap to 4gb at all. Would I see any difference do you think?

Current 2gb's - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...5 1066MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT12864AA106A)

 

[PvtRyan]

You running 64 bit Vista Ryan? I'm running 32bit, and so I've not bothered jumping to 4gb of RAM. I'm running 2gb of pretty decent / fast RAM and haven't found any need to make the leap to 4gb at all. Would I see any difference do you think?

Current 2gb's - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-093-CR&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=&name=Crucial%20Ballistix%202GB%20(2x1GB)%20DDR2%20PC2-8500C5%201066MHz%20Dual%20Channel%20Kit%20(BL2KIT12864AA106A)

I think it makes a difference to everyday use of your computer, starting programs etc, especially if you use Vista. Don't know about games, but I've seen Crysis take up 1.3 GB which is 2/3 of your RAM. With 2 GB, it probably puts a lot of stuff in the page file which is literally hundreds of times slower than your memory. With 8 GB, I've turned off my page file and everything I ever do gets stored in lightning fast RAM. If I start Visual Studio, my harddrive doesn't show any activity, because it's already in my RAM and it takes only a second to start it. If I close Firefox and tell it to remember my tabs, when I start it again reopening all 30 tabs that I have right now is incredibly quick.

My PC feels so responsive right now, I've never had a more responsive and snappy PC.

 

[Hectic Glenn]

So you are using a 64bit OS?

 

[WhiteZero]

So... yes really? Its still a shit frame rate.

And movies play at 24fps. Whats your point?

 

[Escaep]

And movies play at 24fps. Whats your point?

Can you interact with your movies? Can you tell the main character what to do? Can you jump into fight scenes?

No.

 

[AtomicSpark]

Using 8 GB atm and there's definitely advantages to having no page file on the HDD at all. Vista is currently using about 2 GB of memory and that's not because Vista is a memory hog (it's not) but because it can afford to SuperFetch a lot of stuff with 8 GB available. You couldn't really afford your OS to take 2 GB with just 4 GB total.

Windows does not like not having a PageFile. You really shouldn't do that. If there is any significant error, it cannot core dump. You could of course lock up your system, if you were to load more then 8 GiB into memory. This of course would be easy browsing NASA images that were conveniently saved as bitmaps.

 

[PvtRyan]

So you are using a 64bit OS?

Thought that was implied with the whole "using 8 GB" part

Windows does not like not having a PageFile. You really shouldn't do that. If there is any significant error, it cannot core dump. You could of course lock up your system, if you were to load more then 8 GiB into memory. This of course would be easy browsing NASA images that were conveniently saved as bitmaps.

Before I had 8 GB of memory, I had 2 GB of RAM and a few GB of page file and never got a "Windows is running out of memory" message, so why would I suddenly run out when it's all stored in RAM? Besides, Vista may reserve a lot of memory for things like SuperFetch, but it's released the moment an active application requests it. And you would have to go real wild to fill up 8 GB with active programs, like start up and play 5 instances Crysis and use Photoshop. But that would make a system with a page file run out of memory too.

At 3 bytes per pixel (24 bit bitmap) it would take a 330 MP picture to fill up just 1 GB. I don't think those exist and if they do, they're composited images like Google Maps.