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What can only address up to 4 Gigabytes of RAM?

User Cgicgi
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1 Answer

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Final answer:

The limitation to only address up to 4 gigabytes of RAM is typically associated with 32-bit operating systems due to their 32-bit long memory addresses. For access to more memory, a 64-bit system is required.

Step-by-step explanation:

The concept in question is related to a technological limit whereby a device or system can only address up to 4 gigabytes (GB) of RAM, which is primarily a limitation of 32-bit operating systems. In such systems, the maximum amount of memory that can be addressed is determined by the number of addressable locations, which is 2^32 (or approximately 4.29 billion) unique addresses. Since each address refers to a byte of memory, this means that the system can only directly access 4GB of RAM. This limitation comes from the fact that 32-bit processors use memory addresses that are 32 bits in length. To address more than 4GB of RAM, a system would need to have a 64-bit operating system and processor, which can theoretically access up to 16 exabytes of memory due to having a larger address space (2^64 addressable locations).

User Makelc
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