Future of Ram

[lhgpoobaa]

how long will it be till 150mhz or 166mhz ram becoms an
industry standard like PC100 or PC133?
and what about this mysterious QDR ram i keep hearing about.
when will we see that on our graphics card or as a stick
of memory?
and what of the future of RDRAM? good? bad?

intelligent discussion only please. flamers go elsewhere!

ThePoo!

 

[Raystonn]

Those will likely be skipped. Memory technology is moving to RDRAM and DDR. In all honesty I believe RDRAM will win out because it is the best technology, but some people have political issues with the company that designed it. Personally, I just want the best technology. I don't care much about the politics of the industry.

-Raystonn

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[ejsmith2]

*Whew*

(gotta catch my breath on that one......)

 

[Guest]

If the politics of the company are going to sock you for your $$$, it might be worth while to care about the politics....



"<font color=blue>Intel</font color=blue>, <font color=red>You can't spend more but you can buy better</font color=red>...."

 

[Raystonn]

I don't understand your point. RDRAM is currently a bit cheaper than PC2100 CAS2 DDR. Who is 'socking' (sic) whom?

-Raystonn

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[wapaaga]

yeh but in about five to eight years m ram is coming out and it is vastly supperior to todays ram

 

[Guest]

I have a feeling that some how, DDR and RDRAM may coexist for a long time. If one wins out though, it would be DDR because it supplies more bandwidth than RDRAM in Single Channel (1.6GB ps RDRAM, 2.1GB ps PC2100), some one just needs to make a Dual Channel DDR Chipset (Nvidia is making on for Notebooks). A dual Channel DDR would provide 4.2GB ps, with RDRAM 3.2. So, and QDR is based on the same technology of the P4's Bus, so 133MHz QDR would operate at 532MHz, and providing 4.2 GB ps in a single Channel Configuration, (You do the math, 8.4 GB/ps in Dual). That could be the next gen after DDR, and Modern Day RDRAM.

 

[Joseph_Bolo]

Raystonn,

OK I am sold on RDRAM. Some of your posts are like works of art.

Please help me.

Big questions:

1.) Are there differences in the RDRAM brands -
Samsung, Corsair, Kingston, Infineon, NEC, Toshiba,
Mushkin, etc.

2.) ECC is still not necessary with desktop/workstaion
with RDRAM

3.) Are there different CAS rates to watch for

4.) What exact RDRAM brand is Intel packaging their
processors with - now with new low prices.
(I searched and called everywhere - nobody knows.)

Raysonn, I have a lot of respect for you, you changed my IT plan for the next year.

Joseph Bolo

jbolo@optonline.net

 

[Raystonn]

"1.) Are there differences in the RDRAM brands -
Samsung, Corsair, Kingston, Infineon, NEC, Toshiba,
Mushkin, etc."

Because of the detailed standards behind RDRAM, there isn't any real room for any 'lower quality' RDRAM to possibly be produced and still meet standards. I haven't noticed any poor quality/subpar RAM from any vendors as of yet. With that said, I would take whichever PC800 module has the lowest prices. It's safe to say at the moment that those with the lowest prices are those who are producing the most and hence lowering their costs as they ramp up production. Higher production means more experience making the modules and a more tested production line. Once everyone has ramped up to high production levels, we may have to reevaluate the manufacturers. That's when cheap subpar components usually pop up at cheap prices.

"2.) ECC is still not necessary with desktop/workstaion
with RDRAM"
I wouldn't use ECC memory unless you're running something mission critical.

"3.) Are there different CAS rates to watch for"
No, the electrical characteristics of a Rambus system eliminate the two-cycle addressing problem (CAS2), requiring only 10 ns to drive the address to the RDRAM. This is standard for all RDRAM modules.

"4.) What exact RDRAM brand is Intel packaging their
processors with - now with new low prices.
(I searched and called everywhere - nobody knows.)"
I'm not really sure about that. I do know that credits were being given to retailers to compensate for the average price of the RDRAM. I believe retailers were free to include any brand they liked. (So try requesting a certain brand if you desire from the retailer?)

"Raysonn, I have a lot of respect for you, you changed my IT plan for the next year."

Glad to have been helpful!

-Raystonn

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[Ncogneto]

Err, you might want to fill him in on the huge difference between pc600 and pc800 RDRAM. Also, a dual channel DDR solution might just completely change RDRAM's future.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[Guest]

I agree, and Nvidia may do this with their Crush chipset about the Dual Channel DDR, it would provide more bandwidth for P4, at lower latency, which would make it run better, and thus I think kill RDRAM.

 

[Raystonn]

Dual Channel DDR may in fact not be possible. Due to the parallel nature of SDRAM there is much more circuitry involved in SDRAM than RDRAM on the motherboard. Motherboard manufacturers are currently having a difficult time with single channel DDR due to this issue. We'll have to wait and see what happens.

In any event, the P4's front-side bus will only allow a maximum of 3.2GB/sec anyway. Anything extra would be wasted unless the frontside-bus is pumped up further (which is a definate possibility.) Because RDRAM has lower latency at medium and high memory loads than SDRAM, it would be more efficient to actually develop faster RDRAM.

-Raystonn

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[Ncogneto]

A dual channel DDR chipset has already been developed and will make its first appearence in a notebook of all things providing 4.2 gigabytes of memory bandwith. Reportably, the troubles nvidia had were more with the southbridge and not the northbridge were the memory controller is. Remember, nobody has more expeirance with DDR memory controllers than nvidia. They will also be working on a simular chipset for *ntel, although it appears the AMD version will be first. Suprised you are not aware of this.

Last reports have this notebook out this month, maybe to be shown at Cebit?

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[Ncogneto]

Also, do to the serial nature of Rdram, it is not neccesarily the optimal solution where large banks of memory are needed.

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!

 

[Raystonn]

"Last reports have this notebook out this month"

Very doubtful but we will see.

-Raystonn

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[Raystonn]

"it is not neccesarily the optimal solution where large banks of memory are needed"

RDRAM is the optimal solution during medium and high intensity memory use. Since optimal memory configurations are more important the more memory is used, this makes RDRAM very attractive.

SDRAM suffers from dead wait cycles whenever it switches from reading to writing or vice versa. RDRAM does not. Vast amounts of this switching occurs during normal use of applications, but virtually none in most latency benchmark apps. This is because current benchmarks usually due a batch of reading, follow by a batch of writing. They don't ever mix the two. If there is sufficient demand, I might just write a small latency benchmarking application with differing levels of memory usage to show this.

-Raystonn

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my employer. =

 

[Ncogneto]

<font color=red>Dual Channel DDR may in fact not be possible. Due to the parallel nature of SDRAM there is much more circuitry involved in SDRAM than RDRAM on the motherboard. Motherboard manufacturers are currently having a difficult time with single channel DDR due to this issue. We'll have to wait and see what happens.</font color=red>

<A HREF="http://www.msi.com.tw/newsrelease/2001/0601_6367.htm" target="_new">http://www.msi.com.tw/newsrelease/2001/0601_6367.htm</A>

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!