Shared memory

Question

I received a Dec 2006 Dell Business catalog advertising the Inspiron 6400 for $649. Looks good. Then I saw it says 'dedicated graphics card.' Looks real good, since my first rule is - Never buy a system with shared memory. Further down, it says '128 MB ATI Mobility RADEON.' So far, so good. But then it says '1 GB SHARED* DDR2 SDRAM!' (Don't follow the asterisk - just like the catalog, it doesn't go anywhere) Can anyone explain why this system with a 128 MB graphics card needs shared RAM? Does it really have shared RAM? 1-800-Dell-India says 'it only gets used if you play a big game.' Is this true? I don't even play solitaire, but I do use a lot of RAM in Photoshop and Adobe Premiere. Should I make an exception to my first rule in this case?

ejn63 · Answer

The card has what ATI calls Hypermemory (nVidia calls it Turbomemory). In other words, it has 64M dedicated video RAM and uses up to 64M of system RAM as needed.

It is unlikely that other than with gaming, you'd even see the system use any RAM for video.

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