Does your PC have enough DRAM installed for Windows 7
With the launch of Windows 7, many of our customers may wish to make the upgrade to this new operating system
Although Microsoft states that a PC with 1 GB of RAM can run Windows 7, 2 GB of RAM is the minimum amount of memory needed on a PC to allow you to install the latest 64-bit version of the new operating system. With only 1 GB of RAM installed, you are restricted to install only the 32-bit Windows 7 OS.
Windows XP mode
Windows 7 Professional and Ultimate Editions have a special Windows XP mode that lets you run older Windows XP software right on your desktop. This feature requires an additional 1 GB, so 3 GB of RAM in total.
Therefore, for a good user experience, Integral recommends a minimum 3 GB of RAM is installed in your PC to gain the main benefits of Windows 7, and 4 GB or more if you want an improved performance.
Please note, if you upgrade your RAM at a later point in time, you will need to wipe and rebuild your PC to switch from 32-bit to 64-bit. So our advice is always upgrade your PC with extra RAM before installing Windows 7.
64-bit Windows 7 and the benefits of extra RAM
With the 64-bit edition of Windows 7 you can install up to an incredible 192 GB of RAM on your PC! (16 GB on Home Premium Edition). This will allow you to benefit from adding extra memory over the life of your PC and seeing an instant speed increase. Multi tasking applications will be smoother and gaming more enjoyable.
In comparison, Windows 7 32-bit edition will only recognise a maximum of 4 GB of RAM. In real world testing it is even lower, approximately 3.5 GB. Add any more RAM to a 32-bit OS like Windows 7 32-bit and it will be ignored (This also applies to Windows Vista 32-bit compared to Windows Vista 64-bit).
