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I'm planning to buy a new low-end mini PC. I'm looking for the absolute cheapest model that meets my main requirement of being able to install a minimum of 16 GB of DDR4 SODIMM RAM.

Here's the problem. The cheapest seller on a certain East Asian shopping platform is offering a model with an Intel Pentium J5040. The table on the Intel CPU specifications page has the following entry:

Max Memory Size (dependent on memory type): 8 GB

However, the seller's product page claims their mini PC supports 16 GB. Is this possible, given that the Intel product page claims a "Max Memory Size" of only 8 GB?

Or am I reading the Intel product page incorrectly? Is "Max Memory Size" really a hard limit or simply the maximum memory supported by the CPU itself (similar to the built-in support for a certain number of USB ports)? Can the motherboard chipset or maybe the BIOS or OS actually support more RAM?

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    There's a related blog thread. Whilst it doesn't directly answer the question, it seems some people have found ways to exceed the stated memory limits.
    – Jiminy Cricket.
    Commented Jan 16 at 1:59
  • Quite an interesting Reddit thread. The comments seem to indicate that the published max memory limit is the minimum amount Intel will guarantee to work. Going beyond that is kind of like overclocking, i.e. the configuration may or may not work. So the question is, whether I could trust the cheap seller's claims.
    – Aubergone
    Commented Jan 16 at 20:42

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I would read that as the absolute maximum memory that the CPU can support. This would be because of the connection to the actual CPU/MMU has been limited by not wiring in all the address lines.

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  • See my comment above after I read the Reddit thread. It seems the Intel limit is the guaranteed minimum maximum. More RAM may or may not work.
    – Aubergone
    Commented Jan 16 at 20:48
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It kind of depends, not all manufacturers test every single type of RAM out there. For example, just because certain DIMM modules aren't on the Qualified Vendor list doesn't mean those DIMMs don't work.

So even though there are certain set limits for a max amount of memory doesn't always mean that it can't handle more, some older 64bit systems I used to have and with motherboard/CPU limits I was able to go beyond the max amount with certain DIMMs.

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