System Builder Marathon, Q3 2013: $350 Bonus Entry-Level PC

[Gulli]

.4 gigs of ram is not enough and will cripple the apu in games.

Only if you insist on playing GTA 4 with Supreme Commander running in the background. Faster memory has shown noticeable performance gains for the 5800K in actual gaming benchmarks.

 

[slomo4sho]

I'm really at the mercy of the community here and have to scour forums, Newegg user feedback, etc. to see how these boards hold up to enthusiast abuse. By all means, pass on suggestions. We rarely could get our hands on review samples of A55/A75 parts, so quarterly SBMs are the easiest place to learn about cheap retail parts.

I think the FM2+ lineup will provide better utility in the next marathon(assuming another such build is considered). They have already populated on retail sites starting at $85 but the I have a feeling that cheaper options will be released in a few months considering that only a couple boards have been released by the vendors out of their entire lineup. There will be A55/75/85/88X boards that will all support FM2+ processors the 2133 memory standard set forth by FM2+ along with PCIe 3.0. Best of all, they will be backwards compatible with FM2 CPUs.

ASRock and Biostar are the only manufactures that have A55 and A75 FM2+ boards planned that I am currently aware of but other manufactures should release similar products.

 

[abitoms]

Paul, thanks a lot of bringing in this entry level PC. Glad you covered that section. May I suggest a couple things I would have liked to see?

A 6600k instead of the 5800k and a 500GB HDD instead of the 1TB one miht have spared cash for a 7750 GPU at the cost of bringing the cost upto $400, same as last quarter's. And this probably would have blown/beaten the last quarter's $400PC.

The 6600k has similar clockspeed to the 5800k and I figure 500GB would be (very) good enough for this budget.

Again, appreciate you covering this budget level. Keep them coming.

1)It was borderline timing, and I didn't trust Richland support out of the box (without BIOS flash) back when we ordered these parts. Plus the 5800K was $109 instantly, just by entering a promo code, so it represented good value. I hoped by now it would have dropped in price from $130 too.

2) A 500GB is more in line at this budget. But occasionally you find better bargains, like we did. This 1TB drive cost $2 more than the cheapest 250GB drives, and $3 less than the cheapest 500GB drive. So we saved money to double storage.

going through all your replies, I realised a a few things:
1. you had a specific goal in mind (lightning fast general purpose usage at home) for which this is a good PC and will last 5+ years. I know cos I use an Athlon II X3 435 with integrated graphics for the last 4 years and sadly don't see the need to upgrade for next 3 or 4 years. Your PC perfectly fits your goal. No need to turn it into a gaming (even at 7750 level) machine
2. Your participation in the forums. You post and reply with all enthusiasm. Hats off
3. Didn't know Richland had compatibility issues. Complete news to me !
4. Good to now you were able to practically steal a 1TB drive

 

[Gulli]

Faster yes, sure if your running a benchmark 4gb is enough but the amount can play a important part also. Multiple tabs,,youtube,FB,AV will eat up 4 gb very fast seeing how the apu is reserving system memory. Usually 1gb or 2gb depending on the motherboard.

8GB of slow RAM vs. 4GB of fast RAM with a 5800K is the choice between 25fps with 0-30 browser tabs open vs. 35fps with "only" 0-10 browser tabs open. Seriously it's not a hard decision for a gamer who knows how to close a browser window...

 

[pauldh]

^ Not to mention we couldn't even buy 2GB sticks (or a 4GB kit) of DDR3 over 1866 MT/s, which is why the stock PC was tested at 1600 & 1866 for folks to see the difference.

Also, there's some huge exaggeration going on there. DDR3-2133 isn't going to yield a 40% fps gain. At best we saw 10% gains from RAM alone, and with an 950 MHz GPU we saw 13-16% over stock 800 MHz GPU / 1600 MT/s RAM. Maybe bump that a tiny bit if you can pull lower timings. But spending too much on performance RAM is a waste when it could instead be put into X4 750K and a dedicated GPU.

Maybe Gulli failed to see this rig was tested with RAM overclocked to DDR3-2133?

 

[slomo4sho]

Maybe Gulli failed to see this rig was tested with RAM overclocked to DDR3-2133?

A summary in the beginning of the article for the cliff notes generation :lol:

 

[palladin9479]

Having build several APU systems they really need fast memory. For the 5800/6800 line you want 1866 memory on a decent 85x board, it does wonders for your performance numbers and overall experience.

Now you ~can~ do twink stuff like the aforementioned Pentium + dGPU combo, it will do better in some games (non MP) and much worse in others. I don't recommend it as I've had some bad experiences trying to do that. Overall the $350 was hurt by memory and bad MB quality which is to be expected at that price range.

Also about those low end dGPU's, be VERY careful when looking at the prices. Often the "cheaper" ones are DDR3 and / or a 64-bit memory bus. Since memory speed is often the limiter of budget graphics options a dGPU with a weak memory bus is going to perform the same as or worse then an APU for the same reasons.

Good review nonetheless, really highlights where the budget lines are drawn.

-=Edit=-

Ok a 128-bit GDDR5 7750 is going to cost you about $75 ~ $80 USD, and you still need a CPU to go with it. The 4 core APU's are $130~$150 USD (5800 vs 6800). That leaves you with a low end dual core CPU who's only purpose is benchmark scores in select titles. They were able to get the CPU for even cheaper which is why they went with it.

 

[Gulli]

^^
So basically you are saying overclocking RAM by a third is reliable and easier than just closing browser tabs before you start a game (and that's assuming everyone just has 20 browser tabs opened all the time, something that wouldn't be fixed with more memory because someone who opens 20 tabs does so because he can and will just open 40 tabs if he has more memory)?

P.S. where I live you can buy 4GB of faster RAM for the same price as 8GB of slower RAM. Maybe there's no rebate action but rebates are misleading in the first place for anyone reading this article more than a day after it was first published. Besides I'm annoyed how easily fictional RAM requirements (how much people think they need) double every couple of years without actual games and applications coming close to utilizing all that RAM.

 

[gondor]

Nice article, I find such builds more interesting than "pick-best-of-everything" builds and can't wait to see what Kaveri brings to the table with regards to single thread performance (IPC) and GPU performance with memory bandwidth constraints of DDR3 when it finally arrives.

I have a question though: it's been a while since TH has changed the style of its webpages, which breaks up tables (at least for my old Firefox). Instead of showing up as normal tables, the rows display as "columns within columns" (so I get a single column table where first cell says Component, next one below it says Model, etc.). Even IE6 (!!!) displays the table correctly so I cannot understand what it was that you managed to break with transition to new page style. Any chance somebody would look into this and fix it ? It's not as if Firefox 3.x had any issues displaying tables correctly, it's just this one site where they are messed up.

 

[palladin9479]

^^
So basically you are saying overclocking RAM by a third is reliable and easier than just closing browser tabs before you start a game (and that's assuming everyone just has 20 browser tabs opened all the time, something that wouldn't be fixed with more memory because someone who opens 20 tabs does so because he can and will just open 40 tabs if he has more memory)?

P.S. where I live you can buy 4GB of faster RAM for the same price as 8GB of slower RAM. Maybe there's no rebate action but rebates are misleading in the first place for anyone reading this article more than a day after it was first published. Besides I'm annoyed how easily fictional RAM requirements (how much people think they need) double every couple of years without actual games and applications coming close to utilizing all that RAM.

Your missing the point, when the apu reserve up to two gb of ram that only leaves 1.5 gb for windows use. Are you saying 1.5 gb is enough to play modern games with windows 7/8 ?
Swapping files in and out from the hd even a ssd causes slowdowns. This is because windows dynamic memory allocation knows you only have 4gb and will make due with what it can ram,or hdd. This is not a dedicated gaming rig where you turn it on and play a game..

That's not how memory works with an APU. The dedicated chunk gets taken out ~before~ the 32 bit memory cap of 4GB is imposed. Also you can chose how much memory to allocate to the iGPU and picking 2GB would generally be a bad idea as you won't be running high AA and other memory intensive settings anyway. 1GB is usually the best setting.

So 1GB for iGPU and 3GB for the OS. 32-bit NT applications can't use more then 2GB (31 bit address space) anyway so unless your also running 64-bit applications your already at your absolute memory limit.

All in all 4GB of ultra fast memory will give you better performance then 8GB of slower memory and since we're talking an ultra tight budget it might be worthwhile to investigate that route.

 

[ChromeTusk]

I like this build. It seems like a great choice for the "family" PC that everyone in the house (and some guests) can hop on.

 

[palladin9479]

^^
So basically you are saying overclocking RAM by a third is reliable and easier than just closing browser tabs before you start a game (and that's assuming everyone just has 20 browser tabs opened all the time, something that wouldn't be fixed with more memory because someone who opens 20 tabs does so because he can and will just open 40 tabs if he has more memory)?

P.S. where I live you can buy 4GB of faster RAM for the same price as 8GB of slower RAM. Maybe there's no rebate action but rebates are misleading in the first place for anyone reading this article more than a day after it was first published. Besides I'm annoyed how easily fictional RAM requirements (how much people think they need) double every couple of years without actual games and applications coming close to utilizing all that RAM.

Your missing the point, when the apu reserve up to two gb of ram that only leaves 1.5 gb for windows use. Are you saying 1.5 gb is enough to play modern games with windows 7/8 ?
Swapping files in and out from the hd even a ssd causes slowdowns. This is because windows dynamic memory allocation knows you only have 4gb and will make due with what it can ram,or hdd. This is not a dedicated gaming rig where you turn it on and play a game..

That's not how memory works with an APU. The dedicated chunk gets taken out ~before~ the 32 bit memory cap of 4GB is imposed. Is that [strike]not what i said above[/strike]Also you can chose how much memory to allocate to the iGPU and picking 2GB would generally be a bad idea as you won't be running high AA and other memory intensive settings anyway. 1GB is usually the best setting.

So 1GB for iGPU and 3GB for the OS. 32-bit NT applications can't use more then 2GB (31 bit address space) anyway so unless your also running 64-bit applications your already at your absolute memory limit. with 4gigs yes you are.

But windows memory allocation will go higher with 64bit 8gigs.

All in all 4GB of ultra fast memory will give you better performance then 8GB of slower memory and since we're talking an ultra tight budget it might be worthwhile to investigate that route.

I tried to answer this on my s2above, but it was a cluster.

win 32 will address up to 3.5 gb of memory for the whole system. It matters not if you use 4gig or 8gigs. The only thing the bios does is RESERVE xxx memory in windows to run graphics aplications, aero, , flash, games etc. It does not mean windows will not allocate more but will always reserve a minimum of xxx for graphics as a priority. with 4gb you are forcing windows to swap back and forth to retain sufficient headroom to run background programs while playing games as up to 2gb will be reserved for graphics. 1 gb is ok but in this world users see 2gb and set it to that.

Umm that's not how the NT memory model works. NT (MS Windows) use's 32 bits to address all system memory for a total of 4GB of address space. That space is then divided into two segments of 31 bits each with the last bit being used as a separator. The lowest 31 bits are for applications address space with the upper 31 bits being used for the kernel address space. It's a form of security that dates back to NT 4.0 and is required to maintain backwards compatibility at the binary level. The application space is a virtual address space and you can have as many of them as you have paging space for, actual memory pages are only allocated when needed. So having five applications running, each will have 31 bits of virtual address space (2GB). The NT Kernel is a monolithic kernel and all kernel components, drivers and libraries share the same 31-bit address space of 2GB.

Now to talk to anything hardware related you need a memory address. The IBM PC standard has set locations for some things under 1MB (VGA / BIOS / ect..), Plug and Play remaps everything into the last 512MB ~ 1024GB address range. Back then systems had 16~32MB of memory and the idea of a client having 4GB of RAM was ludicrous. So now you have the BIOS, VGA BIOS, and any special motherboard related components all mapped into the last 512MB of space. Seriously look at device manage resources and you can see the mappings. MS Windows has absolutely no problem actually using 4GB of memory, the last portion of the address space is being used which prevents the OS for directly addressing system memory that would otherwise be there.

Now how does this deal with iGPU memory? In the past it was directly mapped into the upper range and could easily take 256~512MB of memory. You can see this on certain old MB's that only show 3GB of system memory. Once graphics cards passed the 1GB memory they adopted a paging system that would only map a portion of the VGA memory into the virtual address space and the drivers page it in and out in a style similar to EMS. It's a work around for the older NT x86 memory model.

So using the 32-bit version of Windows XP on this system would give you 4GB of memory with the first 1GB being hard mapped (the OS can't change it) to the iGPU and Windows using the remaining 3GB for itself. That 3GB is all dynamically allocated and the kernel tends to only use 512MB of space with the remaining 2~2.5 GB being available to all applications on the system.

Now the ~real~ answer to this problem is to stop using f*cking Windows XP. The 64-bit NT memory model does away with all that nonsense.

 

[Gulli]

^^
So basically you are saying overclocking RAM by a third is reliable and easier than just closing browser tabs before you start a game (and that's assuming everyone just has 20 browser tabs opened all the time, something that wouldn't be fixed with more memory because someone who opens 20 tabs does so because he can and will just open 40 tabs if he has more memory)?

P.S. where I live you can buy 4GB of faster RAM for the same price as 8GB of slower RAM. Maybe there's no rebate action but rebates are misleading in the first place for anyone reading this article more than a day after it was first published. Besides I'm annoyed how easily fictional RAM requirements (how much people think they need) double every couple of years without actual games and applications coming close to utilizing all that RAM.

Your missing the point, when the apu reserve up to two gb of ram that only leaves 1.5 gb for windows use. Are you saying 1.5 gb is enough to play modern games with windows 7/8 ?
Swapping files in and out from the hd even a ssd causes slowdowns. This is because windows dynamic memory allocation knows you only have 4gb and will make due with what it can ram,or hdd. This is not a dedicated gaming rig where you turn it on and play a game..

That's not how memory works with an APU. The dedicated chunk gets taken out ~before~ the 32 bit memory cap of 4GB is imposed. Is that [strike]not what i said above[/strike]Also you can chose how much memory to allocate to the iGPU and picking 2GB would generally be a bad idea as you won't be running high AA and other memory intensive settings anyway. 1GB is usually the best setting.

So 1GB for iGPU and 3GB for the OS. 32-bit NT applications can't use more then 2GB (31 bit address space) anyway so unless your also running 64-bit applications your already at your absolute memory limit. with 4gigs yes you are.

But windows memory allocation will go higher with 64bit 8gigs.

All in all 4GB of ultra fast memory will give you better performance then 8GB of slower memory and since we're talking an ultra tight budget it might be worthwhile to investigate that route.

I tried to answer this on my s2above, but it was a cluster.

win 32 will address up to 3.5 gb of memory for the whole system. It matters not if you use 4gig or 8gigs. The only thing the bios does is RESERVE xxx memory in windows to run graphics aplications, aero, , flash, games etc. It does not mean windows will not allocate more but will always reserve a minimum of xxx for graphics as a priority. with 4gb you are forcing windows to swap back and forth to retain sufficient headroom to run background programs while playing games as up to 2gb will be reserved for graphics. 1 gb is ok but in this world users see 2gb and set it to that.

Umm that's not how the NT memory model works. NT (MS Windows) use's 32 bits to address all system memory for a total of 4GB of address space. That space is then divided into two segments of 31 bits each with the last bit being used as a separator. The lowest 31 bits are for applications address space with the upper 31 bits being used for the kernel address space. It's a form of security that dates back to NT 4.0 and is required to maintain backwards compatibility at the binary level. The application space is a virtual address space and you can have as many of them as you have paging space for, actual memory pages are only allocated when needed. So having five applications running, each will have 31 bits of virtual address space (2GB). The NT Kernel is a monolithic kernel and all kernel components, drivers and libraries share the same 31-bit address space of 2GB.

Now to talk to anything hardware related you need a memory address. The IBM PC standard has set locations for some things under 1MB (VGA / BIOS / ect..), Plug and Play remaps everything into the last 512MB ~ 1024GB address range. Back then systems had 16~32MB of memory and the idea of a client having 4GB of RAM was ludicrous. So now you have the BIOS, VGA BIOS, and any special motherboard related components all mapped into the last 512MB of space. Seriously look at device manage resources and you can see the mappings. MS Windows has absolutely no problem actually using 4GB of memory, the last portion of the address space is being used which prevents the OS for directly addressing system memory that would otherwise be there.

Now how does this deal with iGPU memory? In the past it was directly mapped into the upper range and could easily take 256~512MB of memory. You can see this on certain old MB's that only show 3GB of system memory. Once graphics cards passed the 1GB memory they adopted a paging system that would only map a portion of the VGA memory into the virtual address space and the drivers page it in and out in a style similar to EMS. It's a work around for the older NT x86 memory model.

So using the 32-bit version of Windows XP on this system would give you 4GB of memory with the first 1GB being hard mapped (the OS can't change it) to the iGPU and Windows using the remaining 3GB for itself. That 3GB is all dynamically allocated and the kernel tends to only use 512MB of space with the remaining 2~2.5 GB being available to all applications on the system.

Now the ~real~ answer to this problem is to stop using f*cking Windows XP. The 64-bit NT memory model does away with all that nonsense.

I didn't know all that but I did know that allocating 1GB of RAM to the iGPU is definitely enough for current APUs and I knew that running the latest games with 4GB of RAM wasn't a problem a couple of years ago, with the best video cards of the time, so why would light gaming with 1GB of VRAM be a problem today? Your game plus VRAM isn't gonna use more than 3GB of RAM in total, so that leaves more than 1.2GB for the OS and background processes which is more than enough if you don't have 20 youtube videos opened while running Supreme Commander (actually you probably could have 20 videos opened while playing games like CoD or another game out of the majority that is actually playable on an APU and doesn't hog RAM). This reminds me of all those PSU-myths where people say you need 700W to run a medium system: when a tight budget forces you to explore cheaper alternatives you'll find that 450W performs well for years at a time and that 4GB of RAM won't cripple your APU at all.

 

[slomo4sho]

Editing out the quotes in the quote go a long way to improve the flow of the discussion. Just saying...

 

[Gulli]

Really pallandin, ? you want to get this far into the weeds for something so simple. Run the test yourself with 4gb in win 7 32bit start up a skyrim or even wow and watch you swap file grow.

Skyrim is capped at 2GB of RAM usage (I just ran a test in a busy city and it used 1.7GB), so that plus 1GB for graphics (which is really all the APU is going to be able to make use of) still leaves 1.2GB for everything else, which is plenty for normal use. I've played BF3 on a 4GB system and the only bottleneck was the video card (a GDDR5 GT440 which is more or less equivalent to the APU in the $350 system).

 

[palladin9479]

Spoiler

^^
So basically you are saying overclocking RAM by a third is reliable and easier than just closing browser tabs before you start a game (and that's assuming everyone just has 20 browser tabs opened all the time, something that wouldn't be fixed with more memory because someone who opens 20 tabs does so because he can and will just open 40 tabs if he has more memory)?

P.S. where I live you can buy 4GB of faster RAM for the same price as 8GB of slower RAM. Maybe there's no rebate action but rebates are misleading in the first place for anyone reading this article more than a day after it was first published. Besides I'm annoyed how easily fictional RAM requirements (how much people think they need) double every couple of years without actual games and applications coming close to utilizing all that RAM.

Your missing the point, when the apu reserve up to two gb of ram that only leaves 1.5 gb for windows use. Are you saying 1.5 gb is enough to play modern games with windows 7/8 ?
Swapping files in and out from the hd even a ssd causes slowdowns. This is because windows dynamic memory allocation knows you only have 4gb and will make due with what it can ram,or hdd. This is not a dedicated gaming rig where you turn it on and play a game..

That's not how memory works with an APU. The dedicated chunk gets taken out ~before~ the 32 bit memory cap of 4GB is imposed. Is that [strike]not what i said above[/strike]Also you can chose how much memory to allocate to the iGPU and picking 2GB would generally be a bad idea as you won't be running high AA and other memory intensive settings anyway. 1GB is usually the best setting.

So 1GB for iGPU and 3GB for the OS. 32-bit NT applications can't use more then 2GB (31 bit address space) anyway so unless your also running 64-bit applications your already at your absolute memory limit. with 4gigs yes you are.

But windows memory allocation will go higher with 64bit 8gigs.

All in all 4GB of ultra fast memory will give you better performance then 8GB of slower memory and since we're talking an ultra tight budget it might be worthwhile to investigate that route.

I tried to answer this on my s2above, but it was a cluster.

win 32 will address up to 3.5 gb of memory for the whole system. It matters not if you use 4gig or 8gigs. The only thing the bios does is RESERVE xxx memory in windows to run graphics aplications, aero, , flash, games etc. It does not mean windows will not allocate more but will always reserve a minimum of xxx for graphics as a priority. with 4gb you are forcing windows to swap back and forth to retain sufficient headroom to run background programs while playing games as up to 2gb will be reserved for graphics. 1 gb is ok but in this world users see 2gb and set it to that.

^^
So basically you are saying overclocking RAM by a third is reliable and easier than just closing browser tabs before you start a game (and that's assuming everyone just has 20 browser tabs opened all the time, something that wouldn't be fixed with more memory because someone who opens 20 tabs does so because he can and will just open 40 tabs if he has more memory)?

P.S. where I live you can buy 4GB of faster RAM for the same price as 8GB of slower RAM. Maybe there's no rebate action but rebates are misleading in the first place for anyone reading this article more than a day after it was first published. Besides I'm annoyed how easily fictional RAM requirements (how much people think they need) double every couple of years without actual games and applications coming close to utilizing all that RAM.

Your missing the point, when the apu reserve up to two gb of ram that only leaves 1.5 gb for windows use. Are you saying 1.5 gb is enough to play modern games with windows 7/8 ?
Swapping files in and out from the hd even a ssd causes slowdowns. This is because windows dynamic memory allocation knows you only have 4gb and will make due with what it can ram,or hdd. This is not a dedicated gaming rig where you turn it on and play a game..

That's not how memory works with an APU. The dedicated chunk gets taken out ~before~ the 32 bit memory cap of 4GB is imposed. Is that [strike]not what i said above[/strike]Also you can chose how much memory to allocate to the iGPU and picking 2GB would generally be a bad idea as you won't be running high AA and other memory intensive settings anyway. 1GB is usually the best setting.

So 1GB for iGPU and 3GB for the OS. 32-bit NT applications can't use more then 2GB (31 bit address space) anyway so unless your also running 64-bit applications your already at your absolute memory limit. with 4gigs yes you are.

But windows memory allocation will go higher with 64bit 8gigs.

All in all 4GB of ultra fast memory will give you better performance then 8GB of slower memory and since we're talking an ultra tight budget it might be worthwhile to investigate that route.

I tried to answer this on my s2above, but it was a cluster.

win 32 will address up to 3.5 gb of memory for the whole system. It matters not if you use 4gig or 8gigs. The only thing the bios does is RESERVE xxx memory in windows to run graphics aplications, aero, , flash, games etc. It does not mean windows will not allocate more but will always reserve a minimum of xxx for graphics as a priority. with 4gb you are forcing windows to swap back and forth to retain sufficient headroom to run background programs while playing games as up to 2gb will be reserved for graphics. 1 gb is ok but in this world users see 2gb and set it to that.

Umm that's not how the NT memory model works. NT (MS Windows) use's 32 bits to address all system memory for a total of 4GB of address space. That space is then divided into two segments of 31 bits each with the last bit being used as a separator. The lowest 31 bits are for applications address space with the upper 31 bits being used for the kernel address space. It's a form of security that dates back to NT 4.0 and is required to maintain backwards compatibility at the binary level. The application space is a virtual address space and you can have as many of them as you have paging space for, actual memory pages are only allocated when needed. So having five applications running, each will have 31 bits of virtual address space (2GB). The NT Kernel is a monolithic kernel and all kernel components, drivers and libraries share the same 31-bit address space of 2GB.

Now to talk to anything hardware related you need a memory address. The IBM PC standard has set locations for some things under 1MB (VGA / BIOS / ect..), Plug and Play remaps everything into the last 512MB ~ 1024GB address range. Back then systems had 16~32MB of memory and the idea of a client having 4GB of RAM was ludicrous. So now you have the BIOS, VGA BIOS, and any special motherboard related components all mapped into the last 512MB of space. Seriously look at device manage resources and you can see the mappings. MS Windows has absolutely no problem actually using 4GB of memory, the last portion of the address space is being used which prevents the OS for directly addressing system memory that would otherwise be there.

Now how does this deal with iGPU memory? In the past it was directly mapped into the upper range and could easily take 256~512MB of memory. You can see this on certain old MB's that only show 3GB of system memory. Once graphics cards passed the 1GB memory they adopted a paging system that would only map a portion of the VGA memory into the virtual address space and the drivers page it in and out in a style similar to EMS. It's a work around for the older NT x86 memory model.

So using the 32-bit version of Windows XP on this system would give you 4GB of memory with the first 1GB being hard mapped (the OS can't change it) to the iGPU and Windows using the remaining 3GB for itself. That 3GB is all dynamically allocated and the kernel tends to only use 512MB of space with the remaining 2~2.5 GB being available to all applications on the system.

Now the ~real~ answer to this problem is to stop using f*cking Windows XP. The 64-bit NT memory model does away with all that nonsense.

Really pallandin, ? you want to get this far into the weeds for something so simple. Run the test yourself with 4gb in win 7 32bit start up a skyrim or even wow and watch you swap file grow

Second your understanding of uma graphics memory is outdated
From Tech power up:
The integrated graphics of all AMD A-Series uses the system's main memory as graphics memory. There are two ways how (system) memory can be allocated as graphics memory: UMA (Unified Memory Architecture) and AMD HyperMemory.

The allocation size for UMA is set in the BIOS and dedicates that amount of memory to the GPU, away from the CPU and Windows will have no access to this memory slice at all. Once UMA memory runs out, AMD's driver has a feature called HyperMemory which lets the driver allocate additional memory from within Windows, like any other application would do, to be used as graphics memory.

UMA has the advantage that the graphics hardware has access to a single, dedicated, unfragmented memory range that it can work its magic in without worrying about the rest of the system. Here, the disadvantage is that the memory is assigned to the graphics chip, even when the graphics hardware does not need that much memory, for example when only the Windows Desktop or 2D applications are active.

HyperMemory solves the problem of unused memory by dynamically allocating as much memory as the GPU needs, when it needs. As a result more (system) memory is available for normal applications to use, but performance of the graphics memory is reduced. Since the driver has to manage this memory allocation, which is in turn passed on to the Windows Kernel, several layers of processing are added which results in a significant performance impact as we see in the following results.

Except for when you force the iGPU memory to a fixed amount then it just grabs a chunk of address space. Your confusing address space with actual memory usage.

Dude seriously that's not how the NT memory subsystem works. Your paging file grows as reservations are made not as memory is allocated. If a program starts up and use's 32MB of memory but puts in a call that says it ~could~ use 1GB, there will be 1GB of space reserved in the paging file to ensure your system doesn't crash. Opening up tons of programs will cause your paging file to bloat out but not actually be used until you run out of system memory. XP's task manager is a pretty big lier about memory utilization.

You realize I have an A10-6800K running with 1GB of iGPU memory as my living room entertainment PC. 4GB is more then enough memory for all the above on a 32 bit system. Your programs will ~never~ consume more then 1.8GB of memory as they crash shortly afterwards due to insufficient system resources.

-=Edit=-

Just rechecked on my 6800K. With 1024MB set in BIOS the system has 6.95GB of memory available to Windows 7 x64. Under the device manager you can set it to display system resources and look at memory range (View -> Resource my type -> Memory range). That's how you can track what physical address space is being used. Memory used by programs is never linear, it's actually dynamically assigned as pages when the program actually does a memalloc. It's impossible for a program to get a perfectly linear memory map, from the programs point of view it's all a single linear virtual address space but from the memory managers point of view it's a large set of pages all over the place that are being mapped as needed.

 

[palladin9479]

Really pallandin, ? you want to get this far into the weeds for something so simple. Run the test yourself with 4gb in win 7 32bit start up a skyrim or even wow and watch you swap file grow.

Skyrim is capped at 2GB of RAM usage (I just ran a test in a busy city and it used 1.7GB), so that plus 1GB for graphics (which is really all the APU is going to be able to make use of) still leaves 1.2GB for everything else, which is plenty for normal use. I've played BF3 on a 4GB system and the only bottleneck was the video card (a GDDR5 GT440 which is more or less equivalent to the APU in the $350 system).

2gb ? Try again skyrim is capped at 3.1gb

Dude ... it's not physically possible for a regular 32-bit application to address more then 31 bits of memory, aka 2GB.

http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/memory-limits-applications-windows

The 32nd bit is used as a flag to determine whether the memory address is protected kernel memory or application memory. If an application attempts to address protected kernel memory you'll get an address fault and the application will crash. Now you can alter this behavior with the 3GB boot option. That will allow an application to address up to 3GB of virtual address space but then limits the kernel to 1GB which is ~VERY~ bad. Actually i don't think it's possible if you have 1GB of memory being reserved for the iGPU, the mapping would take up the entire range and leave nothing left for the kernel itself.

Another way around all this is to use PAE which is a 37-bit memory address range that's paged into the 32-bit one. This reserves a portion of the 32-bit address space and use's it as a page similar to how EMS works. It's much slower memory access but was a work around for the 4GB limit. The applications, BIOS and OS must all support PAE though which is why you don't see it on desktops.

 

[palladin9479]

Spoiler

Funny you keep saying i am wrong but i think my statement was clear and supported by the tech power up quote above
win 32 will address up to 3.5 gb of memory for the whole system. It matters not if you use 4gig or 8gigs. The only thing the bios does is RESERVE xxx memory in windows to run graphics aplications, aero, , flash, games etc. It does not mean windows will not allocate more but will always reserve a minimum of xxx for graphics as a priority. with 4gb you are forcing windows to swap back and forth to retain sufficient headroom to run background programs while playing games as up to 2gb will be reserved for graphics. 1 gb is ok but in this world users see 2gb and set it to that.

I can see even with supported facts on my side this is going nowhere, trolling are we ? pulling the i have this card only works when the other person does not have 3x times the same thing.
IT is a known fact windows 32bit will only address 3.5gb of system ram. I stand by my statement 8gigs of 1600 is better than 4gigs of 2133 in the 350 build. I would only recommend 4gb using a discrete card.

You can feel that way all you want, doesn't change the accuracy or correctness of your statement. Namely that you don't have a solid grasp of the NT memory subsystem and are regurgitating common advice without understanding the reasoning behind that advice. The "3.5GB" is something that's been passed around for a long time because it's an easy rule of thumb to go by, not because it's accurate. NT address's the full 4GB (128GB if you have PAE), that range is then cut in half. The very top of that range is reserved for HW address mapping for things like the video BIOS, SCSI BIOS, and various motherboard components. Typically listed as "System-Reserved' and "Motherboard-Resources" in the device manager's resource list. GPU memory is also mapped into that range so that the graphics drivers can copy data directly into graphics memory. The exact size of the reserved range depends on the MB BIOS and devices present, it can be as small as 256MB (3.75GB available) to 1GB (3.0GB available) with the most common being 512MB (3.5GB). When you hard set the APU iGPU memory to a value it then becomes assigned by the BIOS and is off limits from NT. Setting it to 1GB will have Windows report 2.95GB of available (1GB for iGPU memory and some small amounts for MB resources). 32-bit NT programs can't utilize more then 1.75~1.8GB of memory so your in absolutely no danger.

 

[palladin9479]

Example for any of you wondering. My current workstation is running Vista 32-bit (guys responsible for internet enabled systems haven't gone higher yet, don't ask) with 4GB of memory. Out of that 4GB all 4 is addressable but only 3.25 is usable for SW.

Looking at my hardware address list the following is in that last 768MB range.

NVidia Quadro
000A0000 - 000BFFFF (640KB - 767KB) Ancient 16-bit DOS era VGA memory
D0000000 - DFFFFFFF (3328MB - 3583MB) aka 256MB of video memory
E1000000 - E1FFFFFF - (3600MB - 3615MB) first section of frame buffer
E2000000 - E2FFFFFF - (3616MB - 3631MB) second section of frame buffer

There are also the NIC, Sound Unit, SATA, the CPU's and various other I/O devices on the system, all perched inside that upper range.

The space between 000BFFFF (768K) and CFFFFFFF (3327MB) is open for system usage. Because the PC BIOS parked the Quadro at D0000000 (PnP BIOS) NT just locked off everything above that to play safe.

If you assign your iGPU 1GB of memory then the BIOS will park it slightly under C0000000 probably right around B8000000 (2944MB).

 

[palladin9479]

Dude where's my car ? your own link
Static data - 2GB
Dynamic data - 2GB



Skyrim http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/615805-the-elder-scrolls-v-skyrim/66693529

3.1 crash limit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyTDCCCYuZk

win 32 will only address 3.5 gb the 512 is locked.

Read further. Total combined application memory is 2GB theoretical with 1.75 being practical.

32-bit

Static data - 2GB
Dynamic data - 2GB
Stack data - 1GB (the stack size is set by the linker, the default is 1MB. This can be increased using the Linker property System > Stack Reserve Size)

Note that on 32-bit Windows, the sum of all types of data must be 2GB or less. The practical limit is about 1.75GB due to space used by Windows itself

I have explained in detail exactly how memory is handled by the NT memory subsystem and all you've responded to is *derp* but but the internetz says *derp*. Your arguing with an engineer who does this for a living.

 

[Memnarchon]

Hiz.
Since I was playing tons of Skyrim and I was always (actually this was the thing I was doing most ) trying to improve Skyrim's performance, I can tell you a few things about skyrim.

You are both right. Skyrim couldn't use more more than 2GB. So people like me were trying to find a way to solve this in order to squeeze a few more fps. Large Address Aware was the solution to our problem. LAA was making a 32bit *.exe to use more than 2GB. So everyone was using it.

Bethesda was aware of this and later in the patch 1.3.1 solved it.

 

[palladin9479]

Dude ... it's not physically possible for a regular 32-bit application to address more then 31 bits of memory, aka 2GB.

LAA only works when your OS is NT 64-bit and your not worried about a page fault caused from writing into kernel memory space. Since we were discussing regular 32-bit Windows XP it wouldn't apply here which is why I suggested the real answer to all this is to use a 64-bit OS and call it a day.

 

[Memnarchon]

LAA only works when your OS is NT 64-bit and your not worried about a page fault caused from writing into kernel memory space. Since we were discussing regular 32-bit Windows XP it wouldn't apply here which is why I suggested the real answer to all this is to use a 64-bit OS and call it a day.

I think not. Correct me if I am wrong but,...
This is from Microsoft:
4-Gigabyte Tuning

 

[palladin9479]

LAA only works when your OS is NT 64-bit and your not worried about a page fault caused from writing into kernel memory space. Since we were discussing regular 32-bit Windows XP it wouldn't apply here which is why I suggested the real answer to all this is to use a 64-bit OS and call it a day.

I think not. Correct me if I am wrong but,...
This is from Microsoft:
4-Gigabyte Tuning

Posted above, ~really~ bad idea to use /3GB on Windows XP as it leaves the kernel with only 1GB of address space. Also that won't work if your using an APU as the 1GB from the APU will consume all the kernel address space leaving nothing for the rest of the hardware. /3GB is for when your running DB or other memory intensive applications, not games. That's why you don't hear about it often though it's been around for ages. You also have PAE which allows for more then 4GB on a 32-bit system.

On Windows XP, some drivers, especially video adapter drivers with onboard RAM, cannot run with the /3GB parameter because they require more address space than the 1 GB kernel address space permits.

 

[logainofhades]

Faster yes, sure if your running a benchmark 4gb is enough but the amount can play a important part also. Multiple tabs,,youtube,FB,AV will eat up 4 gb very fast seeing how the apu is reserving system memory. Usually 1gb or 2gb depending on the motherboard.

8GB of slow RAM vs. 4GB of fast RAM with a 5800K is the choice between 25fps with 0-30 browser tabs open vs. 35fps with "only" 0-10 browser tabs open. Seriously it's not a hard decision for a gamer who knows how to close a browser window...

But closing browser windows is no fun. My mom's core 2 rig is in need of an upgrade, I will probably go the APU route once we finally get around to upgrading it.