DDR2 memory - will I get what I ordered?

[Vivienne]

Hi

I ordered a laptop from Dell that stated it had:

DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz 2 DIMMs

The confirmation came in as:

SHARED DC DDR2 SDRAM 677MHZ,2 DIMM

I did an internet search but could not find a description of shared vs not shared. Is there a difference? Will I get what I ordered?

Thanks!!

Vivienne

[jflan]

I think that in this case that Dell is saying that this memory is available to both cores. Hence, "DC" (dual-core) in the spiel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_memory

JF
Who often wonders if anyone can tell that I'm typing in American English :-)

[kelly]

Typically shared memory refers to the fact that the video card doesn't have its own memory. It shares the memory that would normally be available for the operating system. However, I don't know how the "DC" designation changes things. Maybe as JF said, it's probably related to the sharing between the two cores.

When you get the machine, watch the BIOS as it starts. It'll report a certain amount of memory. Then go to System Properties and see how much RAM is reported. The difference between the BIOS and Windows report is what's being used by the video card.

- td

[Vivienne]

I think that in this case that Dell is saying that this memory is available to both cores. Hence, "DC" (dual-core) in the spiel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_memory:-)

Thanks, JF!

Typically shared memory refers to the fact that the video card doesn't have its own memory.

But in my case, I have a 512 MB video card. I was just on Paltalk and Doug explained that DDR2 memory has two banks and is shared. I hope I got that right. In any case, I wasn't to worry about it. :-)

Thanks, Tony.