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There are lots of i7 motherboards that support 64GB memory, and even one that supports 128GB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130681

But I read that i7 CPUs can't access more than 32GB of memory on some forums. Is this true?

If so, then what's the point of those motherboards?

Hennes
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Joan Venge
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2 Answers2

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I read that i7 CPUs can't access more than 32GB of memory on some forums.

That is an over-generalisation. There is no i7 CPU, there are a lot of CPUs marked as 'i7 something'.

Some of them, like the original core i7 920 can only address up to 24GiB.

Some can address 32GiB. Some might be able to address more.

Just saying 'a i7' is like saying "I heard that some of brand A cars use Diesel. What is the point of having a fuel station which offers petrol for brand A cars ?"

Hennes
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  • Do you know the earliest i7 model that can use 64GB memory? Or is this out of reach of the latest i7 model we have now? – Joan Venge Dec 23 '13 at 19:17
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    This one [i7 3970](http://ark.intel.com/products/63697) is the oldest one I found which supports 64GiB. Though some of the later model have a lesser maximum on Intels site. I am not sure if there is a clear method here or if it depends per CPU model. [Edit:] user2196728's reference is a full quarter older than the one I just linked to. – Hennes Dec 23 '13 at 19:36
  • Thanks which one is the user21's reference? I did some digging and found similar stuff as you. Like you said there is no method for this I guess. I definitely couldn't see an i7 that supports 128GB though. Not being familiar with the current models, I am not 100%, but pretty sure. Do you know if the newer generation haswell will support 128GBs? Either way 64GB with mobo and CPU comes to $2000, which seems a lot for an upgrade. I will probably wait next year to do so. – Joan Venge Dec 23 '13 at 19:55
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    There is no sane economic reason to build consumer CPU's with pins for more memory than 99% of its users will use. This you will find that most CPUs do not support more memory than most of its users will ever need. In the case of an i7 the users are standard home and office users. In the case of servers this is different and for these the Xeon range of CPU are made. (That is, for Intel. AMD also has its own range of server CPU's). Usually these Xeons are based on the latest CPU's, though they sometimes lag a generation. – Hennes Dec 23 '13 at 20:37
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    They also come with more testing, often with more cores and with a higher max. RAM. Example [this i7 based Xeon](http://ark.intel.com/products/64596/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2690-20M-Cache-2_90-GHz-8_00-GTs-Intel-QPI) with 384GiB supported memory per CPU (so double that if you use 2 CPUs on a workstation or on a server motherboard.) – Hennes Dec 23 '13 at 20:38
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My 1st generation core i7-930 is currently running in an x58 board (Gigabyte UD3R) with 6x8GB dimms for 48GB memory total.

Kareem
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