Aaron Kulkis wrote:
Especially since currently, memory modules are still only 32 bits wide...motherboard manufacturers are at liberty to make the external data bus either 32 bits or 64 bits wide.
??? I thought memory was 64 bits wide these days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DDR_SDRAM
If your motherboard allows you to
A) To install pairs of memory modules, of differing size, (say 512 MB and 1 GB) and to use ALL of the memory (1.5 GB instead of only 1 GB)
or
B) install odd numbers (1, 3, 5...) of memory modules,
then your IA-64 or AMD-64motherboard's data bus is only 32 bits wide, killing most of the speed advantage of a 64-bit processor, and really only giving you the benefit of an address space beyond 32 bits.
Ever hear of interleaving memory? It allows more efficient use of the memory bus by starting a transfer on one memory module, while the other is completing the previous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interleaved_memory Incidentally, I was working with interleaved memory back in the late '70s, before the IBM PC was even created. Back in those days, I was a computer technician, maintaining several mini-computers. Those computers used interleaved core memory. -- Use OpenOffice.org http://www.openoffice.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org