Is a 64bit OS required to see 8GB of RAM?

[Mr Bill]

This board states that it will take 4GB(32bit) and 8GB(64bit). Does this mean that in order for the mobo to reconize 8GB's of memory, that I will need a 64bit operating system? I also have a Zalman 9700led cpu fan. Am I going to have problems with the size of this cpu fan? One final question...Will 2(SLI) XFX GeForce 8800 GTX Video Cards fit in this mobo? I would assume it should. Any expertise would be greatly appreciated.

[bigfoot]

Hi you dont say what mobo you have ,But I am assuming its 680i or 780i I think the zalman cpu fan should be ok also the xfx 8800 cards will fit fine as for the ram this is limited to the os a 32bit can only use 4g in total and the 64bit 8g

[Goliath182]

In your bios it should say you have 8 Gb but you wont be able to use it on a 32 bit system. And you can use more than 8 Gb in a 64 bit system, just most mobos only have 4 dim slots.

[Mr Bill]

Thanks Bigfoot and Goliath182 for your responses. My bad Bigfoot about not posting the mobo, it’s a xfx 680i. The manual was a little misleading because it said that the slots support 256 Mb, 512 Mb and 1 Gb DDR2 technologies. Well if you do the math, that would only be a total of 4gigs. Then it states that it will take 4GB(32bit) and 8GB(64bit). I bought OCZ SLI ready (2Gx2), so as long as 2gig sticks work in each slot on a 64bit OS, I’m happy. Thanks again for the feedback.

[Miker]

It is best to only use 2 sticks because 4 causes problems. 32bit OS will see less then 3.5G, 64 will see more then 8.

[Xero (1)ne]

It is possible to see more than 4Gb of ram on 32 bit systems(PAE), however, it's better just to use a 64bit os.

Your mobo should say at post 8Gb of ram regardless of what os is installed.