Ask Me Anything - Official Patriot Representatives

[jpishgar]

Tom's Hardware Ask Me Anything - Patriot

Ever wanted to ask one of the big hardware or software giants something directly? Why’d they do that? Where’d the idea come from for that last product? What’s in store next? Well, now you have the chance!

Tom’s Hardware is proud to announce a follow-up of our brand new community features – ASK ME ANYTHING.

On Wednesday, September 11th, we’ll be hosting the next in a series of Tom’s Hardware Ask Me Anythings, and our guests will be official representatives from Patriot!

This thread will be unlocked, open and live for 24 hours starting at 12:00 p.m. noon eastern on September 11, and questions will be moderated and supervised by Tom’s Community Manager, Joe Pishgar, and a full team of Senior Moderators.

Ask Me Anything Rules
• No tech support questions, as these require in-depth personal follow-up and diagnostics.
• All Rules of Conduct apply.
• Keep questions direct and to the point.
• Avoid opinion bias - ie: "Why are all your products awesome/bad/smelly?"
• Be respectful of our guests, no insults, no leading questions.
• Do not post duplicate questions, or repost your question multiple times.
• Not all questions may be answered. Questions may not be answered in the order in which they are received or posted.

Only registered users will be able to ask questions, so if you haven’t yet, be sure to register now for your chance to participate!

The official representatives will reply periodically over the time the AMA is active using a recognized and verified account.

Please join us on this date to throw your questions into the mix and ask Patriot what you've always wanted to ask!

What: Ask Me Anything – Patriot
When: Wednesday, September 11, 12:00 p.m. Noon EST
Where: This thread itself!


The AMA is now live!

 

[jpishgar]

Reps from Patriot will now take your questions!

 

[MasterMace]

When does Patriot Memory plan to release its first DDR4 product?

 

[rezzahd]

How are you guys advancing your technology in the memory field?

 

[PatriotSaeed]

When does Patriot Memory plan to release its first DDR4 product?

Dear MasterMace,

Great question. we have been working closely with companies like Intel and AMD in developing DDR4 solutions, we are in final stages of the development of this technology and are scheduled to launch end of Q1-2014.

you may see DDR4 release to the market before that time frame but the early solutions are aimed at servers rather than consumer platforms.

With Regards
Saeed @ Patriot

 

[PatriotSaeed]

How are you guys advancing your technology in the memory field?

Dear Rezzahd,

Memory is a highly competitive field which requires tremendous amount of knowledge when developing solutions for. Patriot has established it self as a leader in high performance consumer computing solution provider. our aim is to continue developing faster frequency at lower latencies in order to enable faster response time for the most demanding platforms out there.

Some of the latest solutions we have developed consists of 2400MHz @ CL10 timings which are equipped with passive cooling solutions to keep the modules at a consistent temperature even when the modules are under heavy load.

we are working with technology leaders such as Intel and AMD in developing the next generation memory modules which would be under the DDR4 umbrella. this technology is scheduled to launch end of Q1-2014.

With Regards
Saeed @ Patriot

 

[rezzahd]

Does Patriot ever plan on getting back into the SSD field?

 

[McgheeL]

What are the challenges in moving to ddr4 from 3 or 4 to 5 in the future?

 

[PatriotSaeed]

What are the challenges in moving to ddr4 from 3 or 4 to 5 in the future?

Dear McgheeL,

As with every new technology, the challenges are conveying the proper message in why consumers and the industry professionals should adapt the new technology for everyday use(from DDR3 to 4 to 5, etc......). this is where I am glad I do not work in marketing.

from Engineering standpoint since the technology does not exist and it is a blank page we are working with(at that point) we will run in to performance and stability issues in addition to limited technology resources that can work with the new technology and design challenges which we have to overcome by bettering our process in order to engineer a high performance and stable solution that can be used everyday for the next 3 to 4 years(if not longer) in/at/under most conditions.

in most cases when a new technology is introduced(in this case DDR4) we have to work meticulously with main board/system/processor manufacturers to ensure our solutions work seamlessly and successfully with their solutions. this process can take months if not years in advance before a solution is introduced to the general public.

we have been doing product design and development for the past 28 years and have developed a very dedicated and insightful team that engineer solutions to meet the highest level of expectations.

With Regards
Saeed @ Patriot

 

[g-unit1111]

Since Seagate turned heads by announcing the world's first ultra thin hard drive aimed at tablets and larger cell phones to boost storage, would it only be natural that SSDs like the ones that Patriot makes would follow suit? And would that prompt price drops of SSDs with larger capacities? Or would larger cell phone storage capacity require larger amounts of flash memory?

 

[PatriotSaeed]

Since Seagate turned heads by announcing the world's first ultra thin hard drive aimed at tablets and larger cell phones to boost storage, would it only be natural that SSDs like the ones that Patriot makes would follow suit? And would that prompt price drops of SSDs with larger capacities? Or would larger cell phone storage capacity require larger amounts of flash memory?

Hello g-unit1111,

These are valid points, but the(traditional) large capacity hard drive to price ratio(business model) does not apply to SSD industry from what we have seen so far. Larger NAND density is much more difficult to develop and produce.

to simplify a single 512GB SSD drive may be more expensive than 2x 256GB SSD if compared based on price side by side(lets assume we are talking about the same performance tear products). this is because the NAND chips used inside of the 512GB drive is larger density and thus at lower yield levels, more expensive to develop and produce.

As the years go by we will see NAND taking over the platter based technology(we have started to see the shift in the past 3 years) as there are no moving parts inside of an SSD making the product durable and more shock resistant when used in today's mobile market(aimed) products.

as tablets and phones grow in size so does the hardware that is used inside it. the camera gets better, screen size increases, battery becomes larger and so on.........
if you take that under consideration the storage inside will grow larger and larger as more content will be stored on the tablets and phones as supposed to desktop computers and notebooks. this is a natural curve when dealing with technology evolution.

the question that I like to find out and have not been able to find an answer to is, how much storage is enough? I think the answer to this question is complicated and a tricky one. tablets and phones are not like notebooks and desktop PCs where the parts inside are interchangeable. they are fixed and proprietary, so how do you determine how much storage should be included in a product released in two(2) years from now?

hope this answers some of your questions

With Regards
Saeed @ Patriot

 

[jpishgar]

We're going to pause a bit to give our great guest reps a bit of time to sleep, and they'll be back tomorrow morning to answer any questions that come in from the overnight and continue on. Keep the great questions coming, all!

 

[Someone Somewhere]

One for when you get back tomorrow morning:

Is there actually any advantage to the massive heat spreaders we see now (while Patriot is far from the worst, the Viper 3's are in no way small), or are they just looks? If the latter, surely some form of removable spreader would be possible. It would save you from having multiple product lines, too.

 

[jpishgar]

A few folks have asked for an extended AMA period for this thread and our guests have happily acquiesced. We'll keep this open until this evening for additional questions and answers.
-JP

 

[PatriotScot]

With our Viper 3 line, the goal when designing the product was to create a shield with excellent thermal dissipation that wasn’t obnoxiously tall. The Viper 3 ended up being just over 1.5” tall, which provides more clearance for larger CPU coolers than a lot of our competitor’s modules.

DDR3 does run very cool, however adding additional cooling protection can increase the longevity of the module and definitely can aid in getting better overclock performance for those pushing their hardware. You’ll notice our heat shield design also has an enclosed slotted top to more efficiently channel airflow through the shield, when compared to other open fin designs.

One for when you get back tomorrow morning:

Is there actually any advantage to the massive heat spreaders we see now (while Patriot is far from the worst, the Viper 3's are in no way small), or are they just looks? If the latter, surely some form of removable spreader would be possible. It would save you from having multiple product lines, too.

 

[jpishgar]

And with that, we'll close the AMA tonight. A big huge thanks to Patriot for participating and answering all the questions our users had. And a special thanks to Scot Banks at Patriot for helping to put this together on their end.

Thanks all, for a successful AMA thread!
-JP