Windows 8 Not Much Help For Depressed DRAM Industry

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[citation][nom]InvalidError[/nom]DDR3 is nowhere near its end-of-life yet since DDR4 desktop CPUs are not expected to start shipping before mid-2014... so there are at least two more years of DDR3 domination left unless tablet/smartphone/SoC CPUs switch to DDR4 in droves before then.I believe the demise of magnetic media is still greatly exaggerated. While it may be slower, the cost per bit is still 5-6X lower and magnetic drives have nearly infinite rewrite endurance unlike SSDs which gradually lose read/write performance with every rewrite. No SSD is going to be able to be able to economically replace my 4TB of storage any time soon. A SSD is nice for keeping the most frequently used apps/games and data but makes no sense for a large archive of offline/nearline storage for less frequently used software and data.[/citation]
"DDR4 desktop CPUs" ? you mean CPU's with DDR4 memory controller. I think a M/B manufacturer could get away with a DDR4 controller on the motherboard like in the AM2+ days where it was DDR2 or DDR3, or even both on some motherboards (but you could only use one at a time)
 
[citation][nom]Shin-san[/nom]Here's the thing: how many applications actually need more than 4-8 gigs of RAM? The only ones I know of is Photoshop, followed by running a cloud server.[/citation]
While I do not run any single application that requires more than 2GB, the combination of all programs I frequently have opened at the same time does require more than 8GB if I want to avoid swapping lag while tabbing through programs, which is why I finally decided to "give in" and upgrade my C2D/8GB/Vista to i5/16GB/Win8Pro yesterday.

My first impression of Win8: the start screen feels awkward and somewhat out of place for a conventional non-touch desktop/laptop. On the plus side, once frequently used programs are pinned to the task bar, the start screen becomes unnecessary and largely avoidable so it isn't as bad/awkward as I had feared from all the fussing about Microsoft killing the start menu.
 
This article is funny. So let me get this correctly. They are upset because Windows 8 does not demand more memory??. That can only be a good thing right. I mean the less footprint the OS the more ram you have available to use for your needs and wants. ESPECIALLY GAMING. I am sure people will upgrade to more memory because of these scenarios. I for one going to need more than 8GB of Ram. Can only virtulize so much before your ram is low and i hate paging or swap file. So there.
 
ram use goes down because microsoft actually took the time to write their code lighter and more efficient and now it's their fault the memory chip industry is tanking? give me a break! it's about time this price-gouging industry gets turned on its head. it's a new world when it comes to technology. get over yourselves! find a way to increase your chip quality while reducing production costs and use that to offset the price change, not blame the OS makers for doing right by the consumer and making things less power-hungry/hardware-hungry. just my .02
 
[citation][nom]nieur[/nom]why would anyone buy new PC just because new OS is available? on top of that it does not demand improved hardware[/citation]

I would if my computers were getting old and pokey. That only applies to my computers without discrete graphics cards in them however, especially my one laptop.
 
Sorry to double-post, but I have to comment on this: The thing is that for most people 8GB's of memory is MORE than enough in their machines. It's only for people wanting to keep huge databases in memory or run multiple memory-intensive programs at the same time who need more memory than that.

What is holding back computer today is not the memory, not the processors and not even the hard drives. It is the GRAPHICS CARDS which are not up to snuff in many sub-500 dollar devices.
Seriously, any device with an Intel IGC.... in the trash it goes in my mind, because that Intel IGC isn't even powerful enough for casual games like you get from Gamehouse and Big Fish Games.
 
[citation][nom]DirectXtreme[/nom]The problem with RAM drives would be that the data would be lost after the PC is shut down as DRAM is volatile unlike the NAND flash inside of an SSD. Unless a type of non-volatile DRAM technology is invented with the same bandwidth as traditional DDR3 SDRAM or even DDR4, then RAM drives simply won't be a viable solution. But even with that kind of non-volatile DRAM, RAM drives will initially be expensive and slow to adopt into the market. 1 GB is barely enough to even store a Windows operating system post-Windows 2000. It is going to take a while for SSDs to catch up to DRAM in terms of bandwidth (currently the fastest I've seen is the FusionIO IODrive2 Duo at 3 GB/s v 17.666 GB/s for the fastest JEDEC-standard DDR3 SDRAM), but even then we'll see advancements in DRAM technology that will literally double the bandwidth.[/citation]

OCZ's 12TB PCIe SSD tops out at about 7.2GB/s. The fastest DDR3 that most people buy is DDR3-1333 or DDR3-1600, with the first being under 10.1GB/s and 1.3GB/s, respectively. Furthermore, unlike that SSD's number, that memory performance number is theoretical whereas that SSD number is realistic (as a maximum, but still). You won't get even near that theoretical number in anything for the memory. So, yes, SSDs are very far behind, but not necessarily as much as you might think, especially when you bring cost per GB into the equation. For a given amount of money, you can often use RAID with a few SSDs and take the win away from memory at the same price point.
 
[citation][nom]Christopher1[/nom]Sorry to double-post, but I have to comment on this: The thing is that for most people 8GB's of memory is MORE than enough in their machines. It's only for people wanting to keep huge databases in memory or run multiple memory-intensive programs at the same time who need more memory than that.What is holding back computer today is not the memory, not the processors and not even the hard drives. It is the GRAPHICS CARDS which are not up to snuff in many sub-500 dollar devices.Seriously, any device with an Intel IGC.... in the trash it goes in my mind, because that Intel IGC isn't even powerful enough for casual games like you get from Gamehouse and Big Fish Games.[/citation]

You can play many games, even almost all modern games, at around 720p on even i3 HD 4000. It has maybe comparable quality to a console in both picture quality and performance, but it's something. For gaming performance, I agree with you on the graphics of most machines being their biggest problem, but casual games can easily be handled by Intel IGPs. Heck, even the old junk Intel GMA 950 (found on the motherboards of some Netburst-based and Core/Core2-based systems) can be used with World of Warcraft and comparably intensive games.

Also, hard drives really are often among the biggest bottle-necks too, especially on lower end systems.
 
[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]You can play many games, even almost all modern games, at around 720p on even i3 HD 4000. It has maybe comparable quality to a console in both picture quality and performance, but it's something. For gaming performance, I agree with you on the graphics of most machines being their biggest problem, but casual games can easily be handled by Intel IGPs. Heck, even the old junk Intel GMA 950 (found on the motherboards of some Netburst-based and Core/Core2-based systems) can be used with World of Warcraft and comparably intensive games.Also, hard drives really are often among the biggest bottle-necks too, especially on lower end systems.[/citation]

No, they cannot. I tried to play some recent games from Big Fish on my old Intel IG Toshiba computer.... it just wouldn't work. The mouse input lagged on even just 720p settings for that casual game.

Device manufacturers need to realize that even just for 720p screens, a Intel IGC just isn't going to cut it in the real world.

Considering it would cost them around 50 dollars to put in NVidia's bottom tier solution for laptops in a laptop.... they should do that.
 
[citation][nom]Christopher1[/nom]No, they cannot. I tried to play some recent games from Big Fish on my old Intel IG Toshiba computer.... it just wouldn't work. The mouse input lagged on even just 720p settings for that casual game.Device manufacturers need to realize that even just for 720p screens, a Intel IGC just isn't going to cut it in the real world.Considering it would cost them around 50 dollars to put in NVidia's bottom tier solution for laptops in a laptop.... they should do that.[/citation]

Would you mind to tell us the computer's specifications, age, and any other software/bloatware that you have along with driver version? My eMachines T5274 has a Pentium dual-core E2180 with an Intel GMA 950 and it's about five years old IIRC. It has no trouble at all in many games such as Minecraft, World of Warcraft, and others, although it's no good for modern games such as BF3, not even in single player mode. Tom's and others have shown that even the weakest HD 4000 implementations such as those of the i3s that have it can play almost all modern games at 720p with minimal settings and little to no AA just fine above 30FPS minimums (BF3 and two or three others being the only significant exceptions IIRC), although again, that's not going to compare to even Llano's performance, let alone Trinity's or even better, lower mid-ranged discrete options.
 
I run 3 minecraft servers on the same computer, and it has 12 gb of ram.

Unlike most people with large amounts of ram, I actually need 12 gb lol
 
Of course it's not going to help the DRAM industry. Games are still largely tied to to the 32bit limit due to either the engine or middleware being used. Even moddable games like Skyrim that should have been 64bit, instead you just hit the limit and CTD.

That leaves you with heavy multitasking, 3d/2d work, video editing and server software. This push to tablet/portable BS isn't going to help either.

The "4gb is enough" is just like telling someone they can't see past 24/30/60/whatever FPS. Just because your monitor only does 60 doesn't mean higher isn't going to help. Especially when it comes to camera control and responsiveness.
 
[citation][nom]DirectXtreme[/nom]The problem with RAM drives would be that the data would be lost after the PC is shut down as DRAM is volatile unlike the NAND flash inside of an SSD. Unless a type of non-volatile DRAM technology is invented with the same bandwidth as traditional DDR3 SDRAM or even DDR4, then RAM drives simply won't be a viable solution. But even with that kind of non-volatile DRAM, RAM drives will initially be expensive and slow to adopt into the market. 1 GB is barely enough to even store a Windows operating system post-Windows 2000. It is going to take a while for SSDs to catch up to DRAM in terms of bandwidth (currently the fastest I've seen is the FusionIO IODrive2 Duo at 3 GB/s v 17.666 GB/s for the fastest JEDEC-standard DDR3 SDRAM), but even then we'll see advancements in DRAM technology that will literally double the bandwidth.[/citation]

We've had non-volatile DRAM for a long time now, it's called FeRAM IIRC.
 
Overall, it sounds like RAM manufacturers are just whining about progress the way the music and film industries are. "Oh no, we can't milk our customers for as much money as before. Someone help us!"
 
[citation][nom]PapaBoner[/nom]Overall, it sounds like RAM manufacturers are just whining about progress the way the music and film industries are. "Oh no, we can't milk our customers for as much money as before. Someone help us!"[/citation]

The difference is that RAM companies might start to go out of business because of this. Oh wait, we've already seen several RAM companies go out of the RAM business and/or get bought out because of it. RAM companies are complaining about the fact that they can't sell as many products and what they can sell is sold at incredibly low prices, so they're literally making little to no money out of it, unlike the music industry which is still almost purely profit in comparison.

Unless it becomes more important, RAM companies will continually lose profitability until even the RAM divisions of the best of them can't remain profitable. If not for the smart phone and tablet boom and rapidly increasing graphics memory needs, RAM companies would probably be hurting very much right now because they'd mostly have to rely on servers needing more and more RAM, something that simply isn't happening quickly overall AFAIK. Maybe I'm forgetting some major RAM factors and thus wrong, but still. Really, the biggest problems for RAM companies aren't the dropping prices from what I can tell, it's simply the decreasing demand for memory.
 
Tomshardware, now how about the opinions from Touchscreen makers? you can put an article just for this topic.
always two there are...
 
Ram usage can ,and is growing through out the life of a OS- My Xp experience started with 256 ram - and it was fine for couple of year .Now for Xp anything lower than 2GB is going to hurt performance bad.
 
[citation][nom]ivyanev[/nom]Ram usage can ,and is growing through out the life of a OS- My Xp experience started with 256 ram - and it was fine for couple of year .Now for Xp anything lower than 2GB is going to hurt performance bad.[/citation]

My XP system has no trouble running with 256MB once I re-installed the OS to get rid of the crap that built up over the years. With a 512MB upgrade and a small SSD as the boot drive, it was even great for running most programs without slow-downs caused by the RAM. 1GB tests didn't even improve performance, nor did 2GB and 4GB unless I specifically tried to use it up, none of my programs did so through normal usage. Your statement is false.
 
[citation][nom]dark_wizzie[/nom]I don't like Windows 8, but this article doesn't make sense to me. Windows 8 isn't a ram-hungry mess, and thank god for that. Why would ram decrease a lot if the OS is relatively light?[/citation]

Because it's light, the SALES of RAM would necessarily remain unchanged. There's absolutely no incentive to buy RAM as a result of the OS release; if your computer can run Windows 7 it can run Windows 8 so you don't need to upgrade. In many cases if your computer can run Windows 7 but just barely it will run Windows 8 even better so upgrading to Windows 8 is actually an incentive to NOT upgrade RAM.



 
[citation][nom]Tomfreak[/nom]where is my cheap 8GB module? I still waiting it to go as cheap as twice the price of 4GB ones.[/citation]

I don't know anything about the US or UK, but in Australia 8GB RAM kits are a bit less than double the price of a 4GB RAM kit. And 16GB kits are less than double the price of 8GB kits.
 
[citation][nom]photonboy[/nom]8GB is approximately 2x the price of 4GB. You should buy in PAIRS usually and at NCIX 8GB (2x4GB) is about $30 for the cheapest and 16GB (2x8GB) is about $60 for the cheapest.RAM varies a lot in price based on FREQUENCY, TIMINGS and Quality. *It's interesting to note that while lower timings CAN make things faster at times (if bottleneck is not elsewhere) a higher frequency RAM with higher timings might cost the same and perform better overall.FYI:- 2GB works well with Windows 7/8 for desktop use (tested)- 4GB is optimal for Windows 7/8 for desktop use (no benefit to more)- 4GB also works well for gamers but in some games more benefits - 8GB is optimal for "gamers" with more providing little benefit- 16GB+ is only beneficial in certain scenarios (i.e. video editing, Virtual Machines etc.)*Does anyone else think:That RAM usage will never cross the 8GB barrier for the average user?That RAM requirements will DROP when SSD's become even faster due to a reduced need to pre-buffer files?[/citation]


HELL NO! Ram is probably the cheapest componenet in PC computing already. Also note that Servers still benefit from mas amounts of ram. Finally, Rams make for great Hard drives if you can spend the cash on it (I know i will if i ever get rich).

Thow i do belive the requirement for MORE ram, will probably have to wait another 6 years.
 
[citation][nom]Cats_Paw[/nom]HELL NO! Ram is probably the cheapest componenet in PC computing already. Also note that Servers still benefit from mas amounts of ram. Finally, Rams make for great Hard drives if you can spend the cash on it (I know i will if i ever get rich).Thow i do belive the requirement for MORE ram, will probably have to wait another 6 years.[/citation]

Servers often don't get replaced or upgraded often like many consumer computers do, so they might have less of an impact on the market than us consumers do, especially since it's consumer versions of Windows that continually turbo boost the RAM industry, not server versions. Furthermore, RAM is not always the cheapest component. High-capacity users and high-performance users can spend just as much on RAM as they do on some of the more expensive components.

Furthermore, RAM isn't as good for replacing hard drives unless you count the non-volatile RAM modules which are generally expensive and/or difficult to get, let alone use in consumer systems. Even more important, for most people, even most high-end users, RAM wouldn't be much better than SSD storage simply because for almost all users, high-end SSDs aren't really a bottle-neck like a hard drive often is. RAM, like you said, is also very expensive even for normal modules compared to SSD storage per GB, making it very non-practical.
 
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