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Ivy Bridge and 8GB or Sandy Bridge and 16GB

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    #11
    After "going Apple" I would never go back to a windows based laptop, the Mac book air is the best piece of computer equipment I have ever owned, solid, fast, beautiful and useful.

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      #12
      Originally posted by Spacecadet View Post
      AFAIK if your mother board will support more than 4GB of RAM than it will support more than 8GB.
      I know this as my old dell only has 32bit address lines to the RAM meaning it's capped.
      Next up is 64 bit address lines which give peta-bytes of RAM access
      That's a bit of a wild assumption. No reason at all why they couldn't have 33bit address lines, and indeed my Dell XPS15 says maximum 8GB.

      Do you need the cores? Mine is quad core i7 (i.e. 8 CPUs with hyperthreading), which I can't help feeling is a bit OTT. Going for RAM is probably the better option. Ivy Bridge probably has better onboard graphics too, although the Sandy Bridge one appears pretty good, but if you're an Oracleist you probably aren't looking for graphics performance so much.
      Will work inside IR35. Or for food.

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        #13
        Originally posted by Spacecadet View Post
        AFAIK if your mother board will support more than 4GB of RAM than it will support more than 8GB.
        I know this as my old dell only has 32bit address lines to the RAM meaning it's capped.
        Next up is 64 bit address lines which give peta-bytes of RAM access
        32 & 64 bit logical addressing is a different topic than the amount of physical RAM a particular system supports. Lots of 32 bit processors supported less than 4GB (some supported more) and nobody has made a processor with 64 physical address lines yet AFAIK.

        The physical RAM limits of a system depend on the memory controller and the motherboard design. The number of physical address lines is part of it but in practice the factors at play are the # of channels, number of sockets per channel and the types of RAM module the memory controller will support. Core 2 chipsets typically supported up to 8GB though later desktop systems would support 16GB with slower speed modules. The latest i7 laptops will support 16GB or 32GB with 8GB modules, depending on if they have 2 or 4 sockets in them, desktops top out at 32GB although socket 2011 ones will (theoretically, I haven't tested it myself) support up to 64GB with 4 channels and 2 x 8GB modules per channel. Servers usually support more because they have more memory channels and support registered memory which allows fitting more and larger modules in each channel.
        While you're waiting, read the free novel we sent you. It's a Spanish story about a guy named 'Manual.'

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          #14
          Originally posted by VectraMan View Post
          That's a bit of a wild assumption.
          I may well have been talking out of a star shaped hole
          Coffee's for closers

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            #15
            Originally posted by Spacecadet View Post
            If your machine is dying then it's probably just in need of a physical clean out to prevent over heating. Install something that can measure the CPU temps, they should be around 40C when idling and be able to return to cold from hot reasonably quickly.
            Will try that at some stage. Laptop seems to be giving some errors when I startup and shutdown - the other day it wouldn't switch off when I told it to shutdown.

            Originally posted by Spacecadet View Post
            A fresh install of windows on an SSD (128GB for < £100 now) might help, secondary HDD's can also help spread the burden when running VM's

            Of course if you just want shiney new kit to spunk your excess profits on then ignore all of that and get ordering!
            I don't do Windows - it's going to be running Linux Mint on it when it gets built. But I'm in the process of re-speccing it to get rid of the DVD drive and include a 90GB SSD as primary drive plus 750GB hybrid drive as secondary drive.

            Looking at the specs, I can get a slower Ivy Bridge chip and 8GB RAM with a motherboard that supports 32GB which is about £2 more than the quicker chip but with an 8GB limit. I'm slowly working on the Mrs to justify the expense - I want shiny kit!!!
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              #16
              Originally posted by TheFaQQer View Post
              But I'm in the process of re-speccing it to get rid of the DVD drive and include a 90GB SSD as primary drive plus 750GB hybrid drive as secondary drive.
              Some modern ones support an "mSATA" SSD in addition to the main drive bay. So you can potentially have both and still keep your DVD drive.
              While you're waiting, read the free novel we sent you. It's a Spanish story about a guy named 'Manual.'

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                #17
                Originally posted by TheFaQQer View Post
                I don't do Windows - it's going to be running Linux Mint on it when it gets built. But I'm in the process of re-speccing it to get rid of the DVD drive and include a 90GB SSD as primary drive plus 750GB hybrid drive as secondary drive.
                Linux Mint is a good all round choice but you might want to lock it down a bit. Have you played with file systems other than the default ext4?
                Behold the warranty -- the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away.

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                  #18
                  Originally posted by Sysman View Post
                  Linux Mint is a good all round choice but you might want to lock it down a bit. Have you played with file systems other than the default ext4?
                  Haven't changed it at all, really.

                  I have SSH disabled so you can't ssh into the machine, and at one stage I changed the root password. I had to change it back because I couldn't remember what I'd changed it to - not that I really need the root password.

                  I'd guess that it's no more or less secure than Windows, I just prefer it
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                    #19
                    If you're running DB VMs I'd go for the RAM.
                    Originally posted by MaryPoppins
                    I'd still not breastfeed a nazi
                    Originally posted by vetran
                    Urine is quite nourishing

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