Hi, do you guys remember the "typical" amount of RAM for the following systems:
386DX-33: i had 4 and later 5mb
486DX4-100: around 1995 i think i had 8mb (or could it have been 16?, i was still in the school, so not that much money)
Cx6x86-166(?): no idea anymore
Athlon Slot-A 600: no idea anymore
greetings
mcbierle
"Typical" depends a lot on budget and where you are (US or Germany would give higher numbers than say Romania and Russia).
The big discontinuity came around 1996 - until then, RAM had been one of the most expensive parts in a system, and Windows 95 came along and pushed up requirements too. Then in 1996 the industry caught up and prices plummeted. I remember expanding my (1995-era) 8MB of EDO to 16MB of EDO in February 1996, which cost me ~EUR 250. By June 1996, the same 8MB would have cost maybe EUR 75. I was not happy with my impatient self.
By early 1999, 32MB was low-end, 64MB mid-range, 128MB high-end. A year later, you could double those figures (in no small part due to the demands of WinME/2k)
Ok, Europe, Germany to be precise.
Budget is difficult. I got the 386 when my brother bught himself some 486.
I think i payed 400 German Mark for der DX4 and the same for the RAM. But it was an Hippo DCA2, so it was this EDRAM.
My recollections (which could be a bit off):
1995 - 4 to 8mb of RAM was normal.
1996 or 1997? - 16 to 32mb was normal.
Late 90's - 64 to 128mb.
2000-2001 or so, I think 256 to 512mb became the norm for gaming.
I also remember that around 2002 I upgraded my gaming rig from 1gb to 2gb of RAM. That seemed like a lot of RAM at the time, but I needed it to run Battlefield 1942 smoothly.
286-era computers typically had 1MB, maybe 2 if you were lucky.
As for the late 90s, the first computer I built for myself in mid-1998 had 64MB RAM, which cost about $100 at the time. In mid-1999 I added another 128MB for a total of 192MB, and that upgrade cost another $100. Less than a year later, either late 1999 or early 2000 I added another 256MB (for a total of 448MB, I know weird number but it worked well) for I think less than $100 this time. Maybe $60 or so. Money was pretty tight for me in those days, so I guess you could consider those figures "average" if you want.
I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O
In Silicon Valley U.S.A. 1mb. of third party ram costs $30 back in 1993 for a 486 computer.
4mb thru 8mb was the norm in 1993.
wrote:Ok, Europe, Germany to be precise.
Budget is difficult. I got the 386 when my brother bught himself some 486.
I think i payed 400 German Mark for der DX4 and the same for the RAM. But it was an Hippo DCA2, so it was this EDRAM.
Der DX4, hehe.
Das 286 that we owned had 1MiB and upgraded to 2MiB later.
Our 486SX had 4MiB. The 6x86 I upgraded to had 8 or 16. Don‘t know anymore.
wrote:Der DX4, hehe. […]
wrote:Ok, Europe, Germany to be precise.
Budget is difficult. I got the 386 when my brother bught himself some 486.
I think i payed 400 German Mark for der DX4 and the same for the RAM. But it was an Hippo DCA2, so it was this EDRAM.Der DX4, hehe.
Das 286 that we owned had 1MiB and upgraded to 2MiB later.
Our 486SX had 4MiB. The 6x86 I upgraded to had 8 or 16. Don‘t know anymore.
Hehe, well das can happen, when thinking and writing two languages... 😀
Our 386DX-40 came with 4 MB of RAM (that was back in 1992).
When I bought my first PC a year later, I could only afford 4 MB RAM (as I recall, some factory in Taiwan had burned down earlier in that year, causing a shortage in the market).
If memory serves, my Pentium 166MMX (bought in 1997) initially came with 16 MB RAM (which I think I upgraded a year later to 32 MB)
After that, it I can't remember anymore, since I did upgrade my PC's more frequently due to decreasing prices).
I've always said (since 386 days anyway) that you should always aim for £100 worth of RAM in your PC. Still holds true now!
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I think this is what I had:
8088 - 640k
486sx-33 - 4mb
486dx4-100 - 8mb (upggraded to 12mb later)
CyrixP200 - 48mb
P2-400 - 192mb
Athlon 1ghz - cant remember 🙁
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386sx.20 - 5mb
386dx.40 - 4mb
slow 486 - dont remember
cx5x86.100 - 8mb
k6-2.350 - 64mb
k6-2.500 - 128mb
c.600/p3.733 - dont remember
athxp2500.1900 - 512mb,1536mb
ath2000.1600 - 256mb
p4.2400 - 2048mb
fx6200.3800 - 16384mb and thinking of going 32g
wrote:wrote:Der DX4, hehe. […]
wrote:Ok, Europe, Germany to be precise.
Budget is difficult. I got the 386 when my brother bught himself some 486.
I think i payed 400 German Mark for der DX4 and the same for the RAM. But it was an Hippo DCA2, so it was this EDRAM.Der DX4, hehe.
Das 286 that we owned had 1MiB and upgraded to 2MiB later.
Our 486SX had 4MiB. The 6x86 I upgraded to had 8 or 16. Don‘t know anymore.
Hehe, well das can happen, when thinking and writing two languages... 😀
Well die non-native speakers didn't catch it so you're all good. You're all good.
I/O, I/O,
It's off to disk I go,
With a bit and a byte
And a read and a write,
I/O, I/O
386dx-25. 1MB. Turbo C was not possible, Pascal ran ok. Played lots of games on it. Got another 1MB later.
386dx-40 with 486 upgrade later. I think it had around 4-8MB.
K6-2 450, I think it began with 64MB, later maybe doubled.
Athlon XP 1700+ with 256DDR. Upgraded later as well, but I think that was with the Barton 2500+ (at 3200 ofc)
Athlon 64 3000+ Venice. This ran with a nice overcook for a long time with a 512MB Kingmax DDR500. I could not afford a pair of could not justify it, don't remember.
Phenom II 955 with 2/4GB.
FX8530 with 16GB at the moment.
These are the main daily desktops I used.
A generic 486DX2-66 machine I picked up once (MB had only ISA and VLB; Cirrus Logic VLB card; 420MB WD HDD; no soundcard or optical drive) had 8MB in 30-pin SIMMs. It had DOS+Win3.1 installed.
A generic P-133 box I found earlier (GA-586VX motherboard; Trident TGUI9680; 1.67GB Maxtor HDD, dated 1996; no soundcard but 8x ODD) had 16MB in two 72-pin SIMMs. It had Win95 installed.
There have been other machines but I forget how much memory they came with and/or they had already been upgraded. Both of the above felt like budget business-focused builds of their respective periods.
Judging from my personal experience with a bunch of PCs:
Pentium 100-233 - 32mb RAM
Any 486 - 8-16mb RAM
386DX - 4mb RAM, very rarely 8mb
286 - 1mb RAM, sometimes 2mb
Intel was right on their money with 64mb limitation for 430 chipset family.
I must be some kind of standard: the anonymous gangbanger of the 21st century.
Well die non-native speakers didn't catch it so you're all good. You're all good.[/quote]
that's because die deutschsprachige too, most wahrscheinlich
Commodore 64 - 64KB *****
AMD AM486DX4-120 - 24MB SIMM-72 1994-2012 *
AMD AM5x86-P75 - 24MB SIMM-72 2012-2012 *
Packard Bell Pack-Mate 28 Plus (Intel i486 DX4-100 OverDrive) - 36MB SIMM-72 (had 8MB RAM) **
IBM Aptiva 2168-M55 (grandpa's old PC, Pentium 100) - 16MB SIMM-72 (needs help and a good defragmentation) ***
AMD K6/2-300 - 96MB SD-RAM PC66/100 (later went to 576MB in 2009) 1998-2009 *
AMD K6/2-300 - 128MB SD-RAM PC100 (Intel i430TX) *
HP Pavilion N3350 (AMD K6/2+ 550M) - 64MB SD-RAM PC66 ***
AMD Athlon 900 - 512MB SD-RAM PC133 (max) 2002-2006 *
CBW Diplomat (AMD Sempron 2200+) - 128MB DDR333 (max is 2GB) ***
AMD Athlon XP 1700+ - 2GB DDR400 2002-2011 *
HP Pavilion A706N (AMD Athlon XP 3000+) - 512MB DDR333 (max is 1GB) ***
iMac G3/600 - 768MB SD-RAM PC133 **
iMac G4/800 - 512MB SD-RAM PC133 **
VIA 700A (Socket 370) - 512MB SD-RAM PC133 *
Dell Dimension 4550 (Intel Pentium 4 Socket 428) - 1.5GB DDR333 **
Dell Dimension E510 (Intel Pentium 4HT LGA775) - 3GB DDR2 **
IBM ThinkPad R40 (Intel Pentium 4-M 2GHz) - 1GB DDR **
Dell Inspiron 600m #1 (Intel Celeron) - 512MB DDR (aka, the fixer-upper) **
Dell Inspiron 600m #2 (Intel Centrino) - 1.25GB DDR **
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ - 256MB DDR400 (Windows 98SE supports up to 256MB, will add more later on) *
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ - 512MB DDR400 2006-2008 *
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4000+ - 2GB DDR2 (board lost a cap) 2008-2014 *
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ - 2GB DDR2 (my dad's old motherboard) *
Compaq Presario C700 (Intel Core2Duo T8100) - 3GB DDR2-667 2007-2016 C727US (2GB DDR2-667), 2016-Present C770US **
Dell Inspiron 1525 (Intel Pentium Dual-Core T2390) - 3GB DDR2-667 2008-Present ****
ASUS X54C-RB01 (Intel Celeron B820) - 6GB DDR3 + Intel Wireless AC w/ Bluetooth 7260 2012-Present ***
FX-6300 - 12GB DDR3 2015-Present *
* Custom built by either my dad or myself
** Upgraded (purchased either on eBay or at thrift stores) by either the original owners or me
*** Had since brand new/upgraded (64-bit version of Windows)
**** Upgraded, repaired, and work in progress
***** eBay bidding war
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Systems from the Compaq Portable 1 to Ryzen 9 5950X
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wrote:I've always said (since 386 days anyway) that you should always aim for £100 worth of RAM in your PC. Still holds true now!
In every era, going all the way back to the 1970s, a top-of-the-line home computer will cost you about $5,000. It's as true today as it was then.
Is this too much voodoo?
wrote:386DX - 4mb RAM, very rarely 8mb
286 - 1mb RAM, sometimes 2mb
Just checked old computer ads and it seems that the memory size was
rather dependend on the year than the CPU generation.
In 1990, both the 286 and 386DX usually had 1MiB of memory,
whereas in 1992 (when the 286 started to dissappear),
it was 4MiB for both the average 386 and 486 PC.
Anyway, the exception proves the rule.
(Also, some countries were differently advanced in computing.)
I felt somewhat special and had 4MiB in my 286. But to my defence,
I kept it much longer, so a memory upgrade was a necessarity. 😉
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In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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