AMD ram question

The 0.5 GB of your RAM that is NOT available for you to use is occupied by two types of stuff. One is the OS itself (Win 7 64-bit). It loads a part of itself into RAM and then loads extra parts temporarily when needed. It also reserves a small amount of space for tables of data it needs, and a little "scratch pad" space to use. The other part is the RAM reserved for use by the on-board video. A video system needs RAM to build the output data, and on-board systems do not have their own dedicated RAM. They use part of the main RAM. In your case I would guess it's only using up to 256 MB, and maybe less, since the total space in use is about 500 MB.

If you buy and install a separate video card with its own RAM you will free up that part of your RAM, but no more than about 256 MB, and quite possibly less than that. Maybe your mobo specs will tell you the right number. But you might choose to buy a more powerful vid card with much more RAM, and that will give you better graphics with no additional use of main board RAM, since the 64-bit OS you have will address the video card's RAM above the range of the real 4 GB of main board RAM.

What can you set the ram voltage too? Is it not going where you tell it or is 1.5V not even an option.

Also, where does it say 3.5 usable. I'll check and see what my computer says, though often onboard takes up 256MB default, though you can change that up or down.

^+1... On-board has been allocated a certain amount of RAM. I believe I read in the MOBO manual how to adjust how much is allocated. I won't worry too much about it, as based on the build, your sister's kids won't need more than 3.0GB of RAM.

If I remember correctly, the RAM voltage defaulted to 1.5V on my build so all I had to do was adjust the timings. You shouldn't need to adjust the voltage.

The actual reading may vary a little though, I know my i5's ram claim between 1.51(?) and 1.54V when set to 1.5V.

hello guys and thanks for the reply's

In the bios under DDR3 voltage control its set to auto if i set it to manual i can up the volts by +0.050v @ a time, but if i just bump it up to +0.050v it goes to 1.65 v

and up ( not letting me set it to 1.5v )

In the control panel under system it shows RAM 4.00 GB (3.50 GB Usable )

Thanks for the info makes sense

I don't think i need a add on GPU tho atm, i think the onboard ati 4200 should be enough for pogo and light 2D puzzle type games.

Where did you see the 1.5v for the DDR3 in the bios ?

Mine (with a discrete card) just says 4GB, so I guess that is all the onboard. Regardless, 3.5 GB should be plenty of system ram and a 4200 should be a great (and efficient) GPU for their uses.

At auto (or normal if that is a choice) what is the reported DDR3 voltage? No negative voltage values? Newest BIOS and all?

You can try HWMonitor in Windows or there should be one (around 1.5V) in the PC health status window in the BIOS (along with fans, temps, other voltages, etc.).

In the bio in the PC health in shows DDR3 1.5 then to the right 1.6v thats why in the bios under DDR3 voltage control if i bump it up +0.050v in goes to 1.65 v

I guess it wont go lower ?

I will run memetest over night and see if its stable

Best answer selected by niklas_13.

Thanks all for the info

EXT64 how are thos CCC 10.3a ?

I am loving them in dirt2 FPS shot way up getting 60 FPS 1920x1080 4XMSAA, vsync on, ultra settings

Well, a little hard to say, thanks in part to my doing two things at once. The two games I currently am playing are Empire TW with Darthmod and Dirt2. Empire is doing great now, I used to have a lot of flickering textures, they are completely fixed now. Not sure if I changed a setting or if the drivers fixed this. I think it may have been the drivers. Dirt 2 however is mixed. Performance is up, however now I have some pretty bad shadow flicker (in a couple locations). However, steam did just install the Dirt 2 patch, which I think may have started the flickering before the 10.3a drivers. Regardless, the drivers seem pretty good in my limited tests.