Notebooks to sport 4GB RAM in early 2008?

Several notebook makers will make 4GB of RAM standard on their systems at the start of the new year, say companies in Taiwan producing the memory in question. A number of "top-tier" system builders, including Dell, HP, and Toshiba, will completely fill out the memory capacity of their portables as the cost of RAM drops to the point where 4GB becomes affordable: by the start of 2008, bulk prices for two 2GB sticks will cost less than $60, the suppliers note. This would account for less than six percent of the cost of a $1,000 portable computer where less memory would have taken up 10 percent of the cost in the past.

Specific computer models have not been named, though the extra memory is likely to be standard with higher-end models such as Dell's XPS gaming series, HP's Pavilion dv9000 line, and Toshiba's Satellite X205 gaming systems. 2GB of memory has become increasingly standard across most computers and is expected to quickly phase out 1GB as the baseline on lower-cost models in the near future.

However, most Windows PCs continue to run 32-bit versions of Windows, reducing the amount of memory visible to the OS compared to a 64-bit platform. The MacBook line is currently the only mainstream platform that is known to recognize the full amount without special modifications.

Filed under: computers, industry
Other story tags: Dell, HP, Toshiba