The leading memory chip maker, Micron, started recently to produce 2 Gb ones, opening the way for up to 4 GB memory modules. That translates into a maximum of 16 GB for your desktop PC (provided that your motherboard and your OS support them). The drawback about this news story, is the DDR3-only aspect of it, which leaves most of the current owner base out of the water.

Mass production is expected to begin without further ado, with speeds that will stop at 1333 MHz for the time being. A side effect of the increased density of these chips is that, besides increasing capacity, they will eat less power (as long as you need fewer 78nm chips, for the same storage size, than you needed when using the old ones).

Link: TG Daily.

We would all want to store our data on fast, inexpensive RAM chips, yet such a thing doesn't exist. What we have instead, are very expesive products that may even require a battery so they don't lose the information, or just plain and slow HDDs in an old fashion. 

Now, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (a Taiwanese goverment funded institution), in partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), ProMOS Technologies, Powerchip Semiconductor, Nanya Technology, Macronix International, and Winbond Electronics, plans to end their developement of phase-change memory in no more than three years.

PRAM doesn't lose data when power is switched off, similar to conventional flash memory, but it can rewrite data 30 times faster and is expected to have 10 times the life span.

Althoug Samsung will be first to the market with a PRAM product (next year), ITRI will deliver higher storage capacities (if everything goes according to plan).

Link: InfoWorld.

 

 

Since the introduction of Intel's 865, more than four years ago, many things have changed. We now have processors with bigger caches and RAM works at double the frecuency it then did. ¿Is dual channel still as much of a performance boost? Tom's Hardware is asking the same question.

Armed with an Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 (and it's 4 MB L2), a P35 board and two gigabytes of Corsair CM2X1024-888C4D, it's time to do some beching under Windows XP Professional SP2.

Games like Call Of Duty 2, Prey and Quake 4, give a performance spread between 2% and 4%.

Multimedia aplications like Lame MP3, DivX 6.6, XviD 1.1.3 or Mainconcept H.264 v2, suffer losses that range from the undetectable to 5% (h263 based codecs).

Even a compression program like WinRAR 3.7, traditionally very sensitive to changes in the memory subsystem, is only affected by a mere 2%.

Considering the option to raise OC a little higher when running in single channel mode, and the small price delta dual channel kits cost you, maybe it's time to broaden your buying spectrum.

 

 

Elpida Memory and Rambus have announced a 512Mb 4.8GHz XDR chip that delivers a data transfer rate of 9.6GB/s. Made using Elpida's 70nm process, XDR DRAM is Rambus proposed standard for next-gen platforms. Aside from consoles, we don't see anybody in the PC industry embracing this new adventure.

To achive such speeds with just a 600MHz clock, Octal Data Rate (ODR) technology is enabled. Just compare that to the double data rate conventional RAM has been using for more than six years now.

Production is expected to start on April 2008, and this time Rambus has a product that's not only fast, but one that promises to deliver bandwith accordingly.

Link: The Inquirer.

 

G. Skill is the one pushing the envelope for DDR2 this time around with a Pair of 2GB modules (4GB kit) that run at a guaranteed clock speed of 1000MHz (PC2-8000) at the low latency settings of 5 (CL), 5 (TRCD), 5 (TRP), 15 (TRAS). You need between 2.0 and 2.1V to get them there, though.

The F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ kit should be available soon and allow some users to finally install up to 8 GB of RAM without having to sacrifice Core 2 overclocking potential. I'm talking about the ones with low multiplier CPUs that need to run their memory at a ratio of 1:1 at least.

Link: TeawkTown. 

Windows Vista isn't selling well, and it looks like DRAM manufacturers are losing hope in the prospect that sales will pick up pace in time for them to get rid of the stock they accumulated for the new OS.

Fudzilla reports on the subject:

"According to the news today [21st] it’s a great time to buy DRAM. Dynamic RAM (DRAM) has dropped to its lowest price of the year this week and industry analysts predict the price may go even lower.

When DRAM dropped dramatically in May of this year some manufacturers held onto their DRAM hoping to recoup some of their losses. With today’s precipitous decline those hoping to regain losses will likely dump their remaining existing inventories to prevent taking a further hit on its value."

Failed strategies inlcude also the fight for market share, which leads manufacturers to build new factories and ramp up production to a point where oversupply happens. There's no other choice, then, than to sell at bargain prices. Even against the odds of not making a profit.

 

"Sunnyvale, Calif.—September 10, 2007— OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announced production of the industry’s first Intel Extreme Memory modules, a new memory solution that implements a high-performance specification optimized and predefined for the impending Intel X38 chipset."

Okay, so we got ourselves another fancy name, just what does it mean? To make a long story short, it means easy overclocking for the masses. Until now, when you wanted to get over SPD (Serial Presence Detect) frequencies or under the latencies specified by it, you had to do it the hard way (manually). That requiered some knowledge and restricted the audience. With the new Intel chipset comes a new kind of SPD called Extreme Memory Profiles (XMP) that aims to replace the previous standar by allowing more aggressive timings and higher speeds to be automatically selected.

The OCZ DDR3 PC3-12800 Intel XMP Ready Titanium Edition specs are as follow: 

- 1600MHz DDR3 CL 8-8-8-27 (CAS-TRCD-TRP-TRAS)
- XMP Profile 1: 1600MHz 8-8-8     
- XMP Profile 2: 1600MHz 7-6-6    
- Available in 1GB modules and 2GB kits     
- Unbuffered     
- Titanium Z3 XTC Heatspreader     
- Lifetime Warranty     
- 1.8 Volts     
- 240 Pin DIMM     
- Optimized for Intel X38 boards

I'm not sure this will be very successful, because the enthusiast and overclocking community doesn't find anything useful here, and the general public is not interested in anything else than CPU clockspeed. Intel and partners will need to spend a lot on marketing.

 

When Kingston announced this memory four months ago, they got all pompous about it, "the holy grail" (no less). Now that it's available, we can put that claim to the test with the people at GotFrag Hardware.

Is it really that good? The same question pops up every time a new memory kit with very low latencies hits the market: will it be better than the faster (but with higher latencies) modules already on sale?

You can either go read their article or consider these facts:

- Half Life 2 Episode 1 @ minimum details: 103,56 vs 106,24
- Counter Strike Source @ minimum details: 138,21 vs 140,15
- Call of Duty 2 @ default options: 34,5 vs 35,3
- Elder Scroll: Oblivion @ default options: 51 vs 53

All tests performed at 1600x1200 with a Core 2 Duo 6700 running on an  EVGA nForce 680i. The graphics card is just a GeForce 7800GT, but we can see that even with an old card the advantage the faster modules hold over the new ones is very small. It will all come to which is a better deal for you or whether you need an overclocking kit.

 

Mushkin recently announced the availability of HP3-10666 DDR3 modules available in 1GB single DIMMs and 2GB dual-channel kits. DDR3 has seen a low take up with enthusiasts reluctant to jump ship from current high end DDR2 offerings. It isn't stopping manufacturers churning out new DDR3 lineups and clearly the future lies with this new memory spec.

The new Mushkin memory sports 6-7-6-18 latencies, designed to give high-bandwidth, low-latency performance for current and future 3D gaming platforms.

Lower latency and high-bandwidth translates into better benchmark scores and increased frames per second during 3D gaming. The HP3-10666 modules will become available worldwide in the next few weeks in 1GB single modules and 2GB (2 x 1GB) dual-channel kits through Mushkin.com and its authorized resellers. Every module is hand-tested beyond its rated specification and features Mushkin’s FrostByte heatspreader technology which keeps the modules within safe operating temperatures. Like all Mushkin products, the HP3-10666 modules are backed by a lifetime warranty and an industry-leading technical support staff.

Digg those new heatspreaders too. Check out the Mushkin website for more details. 

Every now and then you are faced with the same question: how much RAM is enough RAM? So many months after the last Windows upgrade, it was thought that many people would have switched by now and that they would need more memory. In fact, memory manufacturers were counting on Microsoft sales to raise demand, and are now left with an overstock of modules. That's why prices are so ridiculously low right now.

Vista is some memory eater, but aren't 2 Gigabytes enough? Legion Hardware gives their answer, but if you ask me you will get a different one. Based solely on the data they provide, I see no justification for making the jump. If you have less than 2 Gb... that's another question, but the speed increase you get from buying 2 additional Gigabytes is really small. Programs and archives will load/unload faster and menu responsiveness will be better, but if you have no other option than to throw away your existing RAM, it doesn't look like a very good reason.

One more thing, remember you need the 64-bit version of the OS to take advantage of those 4 Gigas, and we all know how inconvinient WHQL can be in that case. So: no, 2 Gigabytes aren't too little (yet). And it's actually a pitty, because prices are soooo low.