Tony Rogerson's ramblings on SQL Server

SQL Server 2005 Standard edition x64 is not memory limited, the only limitation is the OS version you run it on.

There is some confusion (perhaps its just me) on the Microsoft site under the windowsserver bit; essentially it says that Windows 2003 Standard R2 can only use up to 4GB of RAM, of course, this is an old page and hasn't been updated to reflect there are two flavours of Windows 2003 R2 Standard Server - x32 and x64. If you read a more recent page it correctly gives the hardware limitations of various editions and flavours and states Windows 2003 R2 Standard Server x64 has a memory limit of 32GB.

Anyway, to summarise; Windows 2003 R2 Standard Server x32 has a maximum of 4GB of RAM, Windows 2003 R2 Standard Server x64 has a maxium of 32GB of RAM.

Here you go...

Windows 2003 R2 Standard Server x32 and SQL Server 2005 Standard x32 on Windows - limit 4GB
Windows 2003 R2 Standard Server x64 and SQL Server 2005 Standard x64 on Windows - limit 32GB
If you ask for Windows 2003 R2 Server then you'll get the x32 and be limited to 4GB of RAM

I'd be interested to know (if anybody has the information or tried it) if SQL Server 2005 Standard x32 on x64 will use 32GB of RAM via AWE - interesting; mind you, not sure why you'd want to do that other than you bought the wrong edition or upgrade the the OS from x32 to x64 but not SQL 2005 x32 to x64.