how much ram does a 64 bit os support?

Question

i know that 32 bit supports 4gb or less of ram but i was wondering how much a 64 bit os supports and also what os supports 12gb of ram and if non then why do they have motherboards that support 12gb of ram

Answer 1

In theory, an OS using 64-bit memory addressing can support up to approximately 16EB (exabytes) of memory. That's about 16.7 billion gigabytes.



However, in reality, most 64-bit operating systems aren't designed to use that much RAM. They're generally limited to 100GB or so. That should cover us for a few years at least. For Windows operating systems, the memory limitations can be found here:



http://www.crucial.com/kb/answer.aspx?qid=3743 -- The OSX information on that page is out of date.



For OSX, the latest release (Snow Leopard) can use (in theory) up to 16TB of memory:

http://www.apple.com/server/macosx/technology/sixtyfour-bit.html



With Linux, YMMV, but on a 64-bit platform it should support at least 12GB with no trouble at all.



So, to answer your implied question: Pretty much any 64-bit OS you buy is going to support 12GB of RAM except for some of the hobbled "inexpensive" versions of Windows Vista (namely Home Basic).

Answer 2

No. Upgrading to a 64bit operating system will increase that amount of ram that your system can ADDRESS but it will not increase the amount that the system can support. The amount that the system can support is determined by the hardware that is included. How many SO-Dimm (memory slots) do you have on your laptop? What is the maximum size memory chip that your laptop can accept? If your laptop only have (2) memory slots and the manual or manufacturer say it only can accept 2GB SO-Dimm chips then that is what you will be limited to. However, if your system supports 4GB SO-Dimm chips then you can install (2) 4GB chips and upgrade your memory to 8GB and install a 64bit windows OS so you can utilize that additional memory.

Answer 3

Quote from Wikipedia:



"64-bit architecture effectively increases the memory ceiling to 264 addresses, equivalent to approximately 17.2 billion gigabytes, 16.8 million terabytes, or 16 exabytes of RAM."



The question then becomes not how much your OS supports, but how much RAM your motherboad supports.

Answer 4

Well I think windows vista ultimate does support 12 and windows vista home premium 64 supports 4GB Ram I dont know but im saving my money for the new Windows 7 with Direct X 11.

Answer 5

technically you can have 2^64 bits of RAM, which is something ridiculous like 16777216 TBs of RAM (that's terabytes).



However, most 64-bit OSes can only support something like 16GBs to 128GBs of RAM. And most motherboards can't support more than 4-32GBs of RAM

Answer 6

Windows Vista - 128 GB of RAM

Windows 7 - 192 GB of RAM

Answer 7

17.2 Billion Gigabytes. You can get 64 bit versions of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 (when it is released), most flavours of Linux, and OS X for Macs as well.

Answer 8

16.8EB (exabytes) is the exact value it can handle, therefore the limitation is down to the motherboard if you have a 64-bit OS.



And they have motherboard supporting much more!

Answer 9

32 bit supports only 3gb, 64bit sys supports about 32gb, however since each stick is 2gb at present time, 6 slots times 2gb equals 12 gb max.

Answer 10

More than you can buy.....this is all you need to know.