Hey, I'm a Linux user. My current office desktop
has 6 GB (not 8 ;-( ) and uses that RAM fully on a frequent basis (I'm an environmental modeler, and deal with *huge* data). I'll shortly be buying a new home system, and am annoyed at the 8GB chipset/motherboard limitation for most systems: desktops are limited to 8GB (which is too small for my real needs), but to get more memory, I have to go to oversized dual-socket server motherboards that support 32GB.

What's wrong with the idea of a single-socket quad-core, and an adequate 16GB of RAM ??
Why can't I get that kind of system?

Oke,

The module may be cheap but I can garanty any of you out that that maxing out the MoBo to 8GB is short of a disaster.

For one no default OS (pre-installed) will run the 8GB. This because most OEM pre-installed PC's running some flavor of Vole's operating system support it since they usually are of the 32Bits kernel.

The limit for this is and will remain 3.2ish GB unless you use PAE.

The 64bits flavor should work with 4GB+ setups sure but then the driver support of devices comes around the corner. And lets face it most vendor are unable to let go of the 32bits dino.

It mostly seems that those of us users that have PCI-cards within their systems are the ones that gets screwed as the vendor might have created a 64bits driver but with a lovely 32bits limit making the PCI-card only runnable up to 4GB only.

Hi,

It's "normal" for an abit to run 2% over stock at optimised defaults.
I guess it's to catch out the unwary reviewer who doesn't spot it & give them better results than the competition - except that the competition do the same thing too! :p

cheers,