Why do 8GB RAM (2x4GB) cost so much?

Hi,

I'm a noob -- the thread title probably brought to your attention.
I am a wanna-be notebook hotrodder and my notebook apparently supports 8GB.

The only thing stopping me from upgrading is the price leap in the 8GB (2x4GB) compared to 4GB RAM (2x2GB) that are dirt cheap these days.

Am I right in assuming that this is because 4GB has been adopted pretty widely in notebooks and towers sold these days, and because not many people need anything beyond 4GB for their daily uses?

And is the technology that much pricier to make versus 4GB (2x2GB) Ram sticks? I understand there are probably more factors at play here but I would like to know clearly why the prices are much, much higher than the 2x2GB ram sticks.

Thankss

 

That, and the fact that it's hard to squeeze more memory on something the same size before.

I remember just a year or so ago when 2GB SO-DIMMs were in the $700-2000 range each.

Just curious, but what are you planning to do on these 8GB?

 

I am going to be doing some video editing and graphics design. I hope to get into 3D modelling. I generally like to have more than I need when it comes to computers. The cost of upgrade denies anything like that from happening 99% of the time, though

But yeah, 4GB is plenty fine for me, actually. I was just surprised when I saw the prices of 8GB vs. 4GB but now I know why

I shouldn't be expecting anything like that when it comes to 8GB ram should I?

 

At the moment, most apps are written with the x86 approach. Even CS4 Master, the 64 bit edition, is limited at 2.2GB RAM usage. 8GB would be heaven for Video processing, RAW processing, etc. The problem is that we need apps capable of using that much memory when they run . Also, nano seconds or mili seconds? 8 GB will disable the pagefile completely.

Patience, now that every system comes with 4GB of RAM, people will focus more on 64 bit. Thus, programmers will write differently. Vista Business supports 128GB of RAM for crying out loud . Start writing people .

 

Can you explain why the 64-bit edition is limited at 2.2GB RAM usage?
It reads as if because it is one of the apps that "are written with the x86 approach"?

I thought 64-bit programs can utilize much more RAM than the 32-bit counterpart. At least that's what Vista 32-bit vs. Vista 64-bit lead me to believe.

 

64bit applications should be capable of addressing much more ram than 2.2Gb (that's going along with the theory the application actually reaches that kind of memory usage).

Though it does depend on how the application was written as well.

For example, 3dsMax x64 will most definitely want about 4GB ram if you are working in scenes that contain high-res textures ... even more if you are working with multiple meshes that contain high-res textures.

I remember I was rendering Earth utilizing 16k textures from NASA site.

It was a monster.
The cloud maps and specularity maps were ok ... but once I put in the ground map and the night map ... ugh ... my Max choked.
32bit Max can choke when working with high res textures, which is why moving to x64 is recommended to take advantage of better memory management and higher ram capacity.

 

This is from Adobe's website. I can confirm everything they say but I've yet to see CS4 use more than 2.2GB of RAM.

 

On paper, x86 looks jolly too . As I said, patience....its only been a few years since 64 bit OS-es came out .

 

wondering about what i have read at adobe´s homepage a few weeks back. they stated that they have split up single processes into several processes and thus the programs in cs4 can use more ram.

anyway, more and more programs become 64 bit.
at least the biggest memory hogs i have in daily use of the software is 64 bit now maya, my render apps , photoshop cs4....
most of the other software does not necessarily need to be 64 bit. who needs minesweeper in 64 bit, a 64 dvd recording program, or a 64 bit calendar ??

 

Generally your memory management is done as a signed integer (int) vs an unsigned integer (unint). This limits you to 31 usable bits plus one bit for +/- in a 32-bit world. As fate would have it, what is 2^31?

2,147,483.648 bytes.

Some people round this up to 2.2 GB.

You could theoretically use long (long signed integer) but it varies from system to system as to whether this is 2x word-size or not.

In short, the app needs a recompile on a 64-bit OS. This should change the length of int to 64-bits.

Cheers,