How Much ram Will I have left?

Question

Ok i dont want to get 64 bit, or vista, Im sticking with xp pro 32 bit.

My question is, how much ram will be used after having the following hardware installed, since 32bit uses some for its own purposes.

Im installing 4gb of ddr3

Asus p5e3 Deluxe ( non wifi)

2 or 3 harddrives

antec 1200 case

asus vw222u

Silverstone strider 850w

Intel e8400 duo

2x HD 4870's ( this wont chew out 1gig of graphics will it:S:S:S

I cant find 1gb ddr3 sticks anywhere near me, i was going to go 2x1gb then 1x1gb stick so its 3gb which is fine, after having all that on a 32 bit OS with 4gb ram, will i have at least 3gb left to work with, or will having the graphics cards etc make 32bit use more then normal

Thanks.

Answer 1

Just get vistas 64 I have it and its great I have no problem running any of my old software if it is no too old then you can run 8G+ of ram I run 8 G of ram

Answer 2

why are you so confused ? windows operating takes maximum of 1 gb ram  for processing its threads , The only thing to think is , what kind of application you are going to run and how much ram does it needs, better to include a graphic card for fast processing which will keep less effect on ram . 4 gb is lot of ram any thing will work smoothly .

Ram is not only the criteria system performance depends on processor, hdd and video memory . . .

Answer 3

32 bit windows can handle a total of 2gb and by default it will only use 2gb towards applications. 2gb system/2gb kernel is 4gb maximum.

4 gb is the entire space of 32 bits 2^32 so in all reality 2gb tends to be the real user maximum and its that way by default and its best to leave it that way. You can make it use 3gb it will become unstable and squeeze the kernel down to 1gb and it will crash.

If you need to use more then 2gb you need to invest in a 64 bit os

I really do believe 3gb 4gb 32 bit machines are a marketing gimmick

Answer 4

3 GB is plenty of RAM for Windows XP.

Besides, 32 bit OS's can only detect and use up to 3 gigs. Upgrading to 4 gigs will waste that extra gig of RAM. That extra gig will still not be used even if you have a video card that uses System RAM.

The graphics card (if it is dedicated) has it's own RAM (called Video RAM) which is built into the card itself.

Nice gaming rig, btw.

Answer 5

XP will not take much of your RAM. Assuming you don't put any higher resource application in your startup and your graphic card Shared RAM is about 128 MB, your remaining RAM should be higher than 3 GB