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Originally Posted by bendsley
That is XP's limit because Microsoft chooses so, not because the OS can't handle more. Also, thats also the limit on single cpu motherboards that handle 32-bit processors. It may be on most 64-bit cpu boards that this is the case because otherwise you would have up to 8 rows for memory sticks.
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I think you're a little confused. It's XP's limit because that's the limit of 32-bit architecture, not because Microsoft chooses so.
I have run 32-bit systems (using Win2k AS and Win2k3 ES) with 8GB of RAM, and PAE isn't all that stable. It also doesn't give you the same advantages of 64-bit addressing. A program, on a system with 8GB of RAM, can only draw out of one "bank" of memory (you'll have two banks, 0-4GB, 4GB-8GB) - so a program can only benefit from 4GB of RAM.
With 64-bit architecture, that problem goes away - but there's not a lot out there that can really take advantage of it. Having 8 sticks of RAM in a computer isn't that big of a deal, assuming you're using servers. I've dealt with a bunch of 1U servers with 8 memory sticks, and some larger servers with 32 memory sticks - it's all in the type of computer.
Your average desktop isn't capable of handling more than 4, but lots of other computers can
