I have a notebook running on i3 hanswell. Currently is 4gb ram. My question is if I have no intention to upgrade ram at all, is it advisable for me to install a 32 or 64 bits windows 8.1. Can advised?
I have a notebook running on i3 hanswell. Currently is 4gb ram. My question is if I have no intention to upgrade ram at all, is it advisable for me to install a 32 or 64 bits windows 8.1. Can advised?
yup still personally recommend 64bit Win8 for full addressing of 4GB usable RAM (less reserved for onboard graphic RAM, if any);
& flexibility of 64bit & 32bit apps unless TS really chooses to forgo.
32bits can fully address 4GB of memory. The fact is with only 4GB of memory available, where would there be anything beyond 3GB if the kernel already reserved 1GB for its know use, some used for video memory mapping and so forth ?
Not saying 64bits shouldn't be used, but rather given the kind of scenario that was given, there is little value to go beyond 32bits since there is hardly any benefits for 64bits to exhibit its potential. More like with every memory addressing in a 64bits software using 8bytes vs 4bytes, memory are consumed with no benefits and system caching diminished due to large software occupying the memory and less available too.
While running 32bits applications on 64bits system, the application is still limited to the 4gb boundary and having the kernel mapped into the upper 1GB memory address of the application process memory space, there is no advantage of running a 32bits application in a 64bits OS unless there are more than 4GB hardware memory for the OS to reassign different processes pages beyond the 4GB limitation.
Running a 64bits application on a 64bits OS in a 4GB or less hardware memory is called suffocating yourself voluntarily, since you are already limited on hardware resources and yet you still choose to bloat your memory consumption.
Feel free to read: WOW64: Memory mapping of 32bit apps running on a 64bit Windows | Citrix Blogs
Consumer Windows 32-bit (XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1) can only utilize 4GB of memory - and even then, it is usually an amount between 2.75GB and 3.75GB that is visible (more commonly around 3.25GB.)
Does windows 8 32-bit can access full 4GB of ram, if not then how - Microsoft Community
flexibility as in "It's an open option" to run or trial run 64-bit apps.
a user still hv choice to decide which suits him (or like) best.
i'll just open apps (32 or 64bit) (& close) when needed & not leave them draining mem, so bloating if there's, a very very rare issue to me personally (perhaps a couple times once a yr)
Just to clarify, I confirm won't upgrade the ram at all. So 4gb ram is max. My concern though is that if I install 32bits OS, will I be wasting any ram since 32bits can only utilise up to 4gb ram. I saw in some posting on the web mentioning that by using 32bits os, I can only see it reflected as 3+gb under computer properties. As such, I worry if I'm actually wasting the ram if I do so.
... It's not about ram nowadays, it's the apps or games ...
You'll be in shock when suddenly you can't run a particular app or game since it's 64 bit only and yet only requires less than 4 gig ram to run. lol.
There is something called Wow64 to take care of that.
Do check out the link provided by davidktw in post #8
TS, pls advise what graphics card are you using ?
Do check out this link : 32 bit vs 64 bit: How it relates to video cards | TechPowerUp Forums
How video cards memory will affect your use-able physical memory.
In real life, 64bit OS does not bloat so much as concern by davidktw.
Even if it bloat, how much is ram nowadays ?
I am more worrying if my system have insufficient ram for my apps to run if I stick my head on 32bit OS. Performance of the machine will definitely degrade if insufficient ram. Even if I have the money and the ram slots to add the ram, the system performance will not improve due to the limitation of 32bit OS.
End of the day, it is still your call to decide 32bit or 64bit.
There is something called Wow64 to take care of that.
Do check out the link provided by davidktw in post #8
TS, pls advise what graphics card are you using ?
Do check out this link : 32 bit vs 64 bit: How it relates to video cards | TechPowerUp Forums
How video cards memory will affect your use-able physical memory.
In real life, 64bit OS does not bloat so much as concern by davidktw.
Even if it bloat, how much is ram nowadays ?
I am more worrying if my system have insufficient ram for my apps to run if I stick my head on 32bit OS. Performance of the machine will definitely degrade if insufficient ram. Even if I have the money and the ram slots to add the ram, the system performance will not improve due to the limitation of 32bit OS.
End of the day, it is still your call to decide 32bit or 64bit.