Future Tech Systems

Whether it is to prepare your PC for an upgrade to Windows 7, or just to squeeze some more time out of your machine as-is, I highly recommend having 4-8GB of RAM if your system will handle it.  If you have 32 bit Windows XP, Vista, or Windows 7, your system will only recognize a maximum of 3.5GB of RAM.  To oversimplify, a 32 bit operating system uses 32 bit numbers to assign an address to each little “slot” in your memory to use.  32 bits was plenty in the past, because hey, who would ever have 4GB of RAM?  64 bit versions of XP, Vista, and Windows 7 remove this limitation.  It can address essentially more RAM than you could ever put in a present day computer.  Programs and operating systems designed to run on 64 Bit processors will run better and faster.

Think of the RAM as the attic or the garage – its where the computer puts stuff while its doing other things to come back to later.  Think of 32 bit and the 3.5 GB limitation as a 2 car garage, and think of a 64 bit systems RAM limitation as say, the state of Connecticut.  The RAM is the second fastest place the computer can access information from, aside from the cache memory on the processor itself.  With all that being said, a layman’s way of putting it is to load up a big program, like Photoshop, or Outlook if you have a lot of email stored in it, and listen to all the “clicking” that your computer is doing reading data from your hard drive.  The more information that can be stored in your RAM, the less of that it will have to do, and things will run much quicker.

If you are an enthusiast/tech person, you likely know exactly what type of RAM your computer takes, and will opt for someplace like NewEgg to buy RAM from.  For those of you that aren’t, there is a nifty tool that a memory manufacturer named Crucial has. (www.crucial.com).  While this tool will run in Firefox, I’ve found it works much easier with Internet Explorer.  You basically run their online scanning tool, and it will tell you how much memory you have, how much maximum your system will support, and various upgrade options.  Personally and professionally, I ALWAYS opt for the kits that remove your existing RAM and replace everything with new.  The reasons for this are: It’s brand new, so it will likely be better performance, you can generally fit more in by replacing your existing memory, and you don’t have to worry about mismatched speeds or brands not getting along with each other.

If you have a 64 bit processor, and you have or are planning to get at least 4 GB of RAM, I definitely recommend installing the 64 bit version of your operating system.  Beware though, particularly with Windows Vista, that some software and many drivers don’t run on 64 bit – you have to make sure anything important that you use (Printer, video card, etc.) has 64 bit drivers available.  If you are unsure, please contact us, the professionals, to handle upgrading your memory and operating system!