can somebody help know the different types of Operating Systems (client or server) and the maximum memory sizes it can handle.

thanks

 

The maximum memorizy size it can handle depends if it is a 32-bit or 64-bit OS. A 32-bit OS can handle 3.x gb while I think the 64-bit can handle upto 128gb.

 

Additionally, it depends on the Operating System - Windows, Linux, OSX, etc.

Tahmid is right to point out the architectural limitations of 32/64-bit.

Dave

 

Hello,

In theory the 32 bit system can address 4 Gbyte.
In practice windows will address about 3.5 Gbyte.
In theory a 64 bit system can address 16 Exa-byte.
In practice they use 128 Gbyte.

Greetings,
Bertus

 

It is also worth mentioning 32-bit operating systems can utilise hardware capabilities such as Physical Address Extension to allow the system to use more than the theoretical 4GB limit.

Realistically if you want to use more than 4GB of memory you need to look at a 64-bit OS.

Dave

 

The iMAC is very user friendly and has a lot of extra programs that are not available for the PC. I am running
OS X Tiger for my iMAC and Win XP Home for my other computers. I would say that Vista being this new that has a lot of bugs and patches to be taken care of which will take sometime. But the MAC has OS X Tiger which is very stable and now there latest one is Leopard. There is a program you can get called "Boot Camp" with MAC that will let you boot between your MAC OS and a Windows OS. Great feature that I think you would be interested in so you can have the best of both worlds.

 

...but 64 systems i've heard they have problems with 32 system software ...

 

64 bit systems need 64 bit drivers.
XP x64 has some problems, but Vista 64 bit has no problems with 32bit software, but requires 64bit drivers.