Maximum allowed 8 GB (4 x 2 GB) (64-bit OS)
4 GB* (4 x 1 GB) (32-bit OS)
*Actual available memory may be less

Ok....would someone please explain to me the difference between a 64 and 32 bit OS.....

older cpus were 32 bit processors. most current cpus are 64 bit processors. theoreticly, this means they are moe powerful. to fully access this extra power you need to have a 64 bit operating system, and the 64 bit versions of said programs.

there is no problem with having 64 bit hardware, and running 32 bit OS and software on it. the support for 64 bit is patchy with some programs.

 i think what you are looking at there is the maximum ram usage under XP yeah? if so, dont worry about it. i cant imagine what you would need more than 4 gigs of ram for, for quite a while. by the time you actually need it, you will be upgrading to vista anyway.

as re; operating systems, i use my old 32 bit version of XP pro. its the only one i know, so i cant advise one way or the other between xp32 and xp64.  i doubt there are many differences that would be very relevent to your current usage needs.

hope this helps.  

that makes sense.....I'm on xp32 also.......

4 gigs ram compared to my now 512mb is gonna blow my mind! muhahahahahahahahahahaha my husband will never see me cause I won't get pissed off at my pc and come to bed!

lol, we will have to call your pc "the widowmaker"  lol. your poor husband.

remember to go for good ram, that matches the rest of your hardware. 

Processing speed is based on bit lengths. The original 8088 chip had a processing bit length of 8bits or one character at a time running at a processing speed of 4.77Mhz (if I remember correctly). Current hardware that is coming out is now 64bits so that it can process 8 characters at a time or one to two 'words' depending on length. You must take into consideration that most of this is internal to the CPU and possibly between CPU and memory. External to the perephirals is still 32bit and in many situation still 16bit nd sometimes 8bit. So when they brag of 64bit processing it is mostly in the CPU. Also, there is very little actual software that can take advantage of 64bit (and multiple cores even) so the actual improvement is very minimal. This is especially true on the consumer end. Any software available that is native 64bit is going to be Pro software and VERY expensive.

Two things that truely improve performace are more memory and faster drives. High power graphics adapters with lots of memory help too.

But heck, WinXP64 STILL has 8bit DOS coding in it so who cares!

The bigger your hardware the bigger OS it needs.