ASUS comes with a motherboard with onboard RAM

[ripken204]

I wonder why you say that the design isn´t good, any good reason for it? Only design from them that wan´t good was the A7V; problems with the USB bus.

i was going to say the same thing. asus has one of the best designs in the whole motherboard business.

[Zxian]

For everyone who's saying that it's "not good" that you can't upgrade the RAM - why is that? You're set with a motherboard and RAM solution that will definitely last you another few years. There are very few people who need more than 2GB of RAM in their systems, and DDR3 is already the "big new thing". I would seriously consider this board for my next workstation. Dual GigE, two PCI-E x16, P35 based. DDR3 built in. What more could you ask for?

[puntoMX]

Naa, workstations need 4GB or more (64bit XP) these days here ...

[ripken204]

Naa, workstations need 4GB or more (64bit XP) these days here ...

well i would say that you need at least 3gigs if you have vista..

with xp lots of people have 2gb of ram b/c the need it, xp only uses like 300-400mb of ram..

vista uses close to 1gig of ram, so if you have 3gigs of ram, that is a little more free ram than what you had for xp..

all i know is that i will be going 2x2gigs for my next pc.

[Zxian]

Naa, workstations need 4GB or more (64bit XP) these days here ...

well i would say that you need at least 3gigs if you have vista..

with xp lots of people have 2gb of ram b/c the need it, xp only uses like 300-400mb of ram..

vista uses close to 1gig of ram, so if you have 3gigs of ram, that is a little more free ram than what you had for xp..

all i know is that i will be going 2x2gigs for my next pc.

Hang on a sec you two... punto - you're saying that people NEED 4GB of RAM? For what? XP-x64 definitely doesn't require you to use 4GB of RAM. When I'm talking workstation, I mean the typical office workstation where gaming isn't part of the deal, and not 3D modelling or the like.

When I say workstation - I mean using programs like the Office Suite, internet browsing, e-mail, IM, some music. The simple stuff. I've got all of that kind of stuff running on my old steam engine (PIII 1GHz, 1GB PC133), so a new computer with massive amounts of RAM isn't needed.

Also ripken - you seem to forget that Vista does a lot more caching than XP does. One of the main reasons why Vista "uses" more RAM is because it's kept that web browser that you had open (and closed) resident in memory in case that you want to open it up again. When I ran Vista Beta 2 on my laptop, I had 1GB in this system and didn't notice any large amount of paging (the sign that you're out of RAM). Vista is simply better at memory management than XP is.

[puntoMX]

Hang on a sec you two... punto - you're saying that people NEED 4GB of RAM? For what? XP-x64 definitely doesn't require you to use 4GB of RAM. When I'm talking workstation, I mean the typical office workstation where gaming isn't part of the deal, and not 3D modelling or the like.

When I say workstation - I mean using programs like the Office Suite, internet browsing, e-mail, IM, some music. The simple stuff. I've got all of that kind of stuff running on my old steam engine (PIII 1GHz, 1GB PC133), so a new computer with massive amounts of RAM isn't needed.

Got ya, this is why I said "here" on the end of the line. And yes, that´s what I call I workstation, I machine to make money with . A "normal" desktop isn´t called a workstation, and for a desktop computer 2GB in my eyes indeed will be enough for the next 2 years...

[ripken204]

ah sorry there zxian. for a workstation with xp 512mb is perfect and for vista 1gb is perfect.

for ppl who game like me on vista, you really need 3gigs.

[puntoMX]

Please guys, don´t call it a workstation while it´s a desktop computer .

[Zxian]

Well - I wouldn't call ripken's current computer a workstation. I'd call it a gaming machine, since that's what it was built to do. A workstation is meant to do work on. I'd guess that the majority of work done on computers involves relatively simple tasks which don't require a lot of memory.

"Desktop computer" is too general of a term. My file server is built off a "desktop computer" motherboard, but it's currently running headless.

[ripken204]

lol, the main purpose of my computer was'nt for gaming. but don't get me wrong, gaming is a large part of it, hence the 8800gts i just got

i barely play games on it, im too busy doing other things such as coding or reading up on things.

[puntoMX]

"Desktop computer" is too general of a term. My file server is built off a "desktop computer" motherboard, but it's currently running headless.

I just go with the flow with that, if 80% says it´s desktop, then I will keep desktop as teh right word .

Check for example: http://www.nvidia.com/page/products.html

[weEvil]

Please guys, don´t call it a workstation while it´s a desktop computer .

Aren't workstations built out of different components?

Like something containing a quadro/firegl and ECC ram would be a workstation, while a similar PC containing non-ec and a Radeon/GeForce would be a desktop.

That and mix it in with what you use it for.

[Zxian]

@brucevangeorge - ECC RAM is mostly used for server environments where data integrity is paramount. Quadro and FireGL video cards are used mainly in 3D modelling programs, for either CAD work or things like 3DSMax, Bryce, etc.

[Kelsenellenelvian]

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