@Dustin... be sure you comprehend before accusing someone of being ignorant

Ian didn't say Windows "couldn't do PAE - period". He said it couldn't do PAE because too many drivers couldn't handle it, having not been written with PAE in mind.

@ AMD

Yes, I find it truly surprising that an 8-DIMM dual-opteron setup was not tested in this article for Core i7 memory configs!!

AMD

This is very worthwhile reporting!

It is little known that the only fully performant memory configuration for dual processor AMD Opterons has been exactly 8 DIMMS of identical density, 4 on each socket, at least according to my tests. Other configurations give poorer measured performance, which may or may not be reported by the BIOS.

I have only tested with an in house tool, Opteron versions up to Barcelona. Anybody concerned about memory performance should repeat the tests on more modern hardware.

I find it amazing that such basic information is not clearly documented and is also rarely tested and reported-...