Samsung Unveils 512GB DDR5 RAM Module (engadget.com) 33
Samsung has unveiled a new RAM module that shows the potential of DDR5 memory in terms of speed and capacity. Engadget reports: The 512GB DDR5 module is the first to use High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) tech, delivering 7,200 Mbps speeds -- over double that of DDR4, Samsung said. Right now, it's aimed at data-hungry supercomputing, AI and machine learning functions, but DDR5 will eventually find its way to regular PCs, boosting gaming and other applications. Developed by Intel, it uses hafnium instead of silicon, with metals replacing the normal polysilicon gate electrodes. All of that allows for higher chip densities, while reducing current leakage.
Each chip uses eight layers of 16Gb DRAM chips for a capacity of 128Gb, or 16GB. As such, Samsung would need 32 of those to make a 512GB RAM module. On top of the higher speeds and capacity, Samsung said that the chip uses 13 percent less power than non-HKMG modules -- ideal for data centers, but not so bad for regular PCs, either. With 7,200 Mbps speeds, Samsung's latest module would deliver around 57.6 GB/s transfer speeds on a single channel.
Each chip uses eight layers of 16Gb DRAM chips for a capacity of 128Gb, or 16GB. As such, Samsung would need 32 of those to make a 512GB RAM module. On top of the higher speeds and capacity, Samsung said that the chip uses 13 percent less power than non-HKMG modules -- ideal for data centers, but not so bad for regular PCs, either. With 7,200 Mbps speeds, Samsung's latest module would deliver around 57.6 GB/s transfer speeds on a single channel.
But (Score:5, Funny)
can it run crysis?
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can it run crysis?
Just barely. But Minecraft? Forget it. You're gonna need at least a Sega Genesis to render that shit. Insane.
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can it run crysis?
Since one of the link in TFS says it is "the memory of the future", I would have been more interested to know if it has ECC (Error correction code) and I can't find any mention of it in both linked articles. Speed and capacity is nice but sometimes reliability matters as well. Don't forget that, "in the future", they say that we are supposed to be going to space more and more so how much is that memory resistant to bit flips? I would have liked to know.
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Re:But (Score:5, Informative)
"Unlike DDR4, all DDR5 DIMMs will have in-chip ECC, where errors are detected and corrected before sending data to the CPU. There will still exist non-ECC and ECC DDR5 DIMM variants; the ECC variants will have extra data lines to the CPU to send error detection data, enabling the CPU to detect and correct errors that occurred in transit. "
If you're paranoid about Wikipedia as a source, I have seen that reported elsewhere, its just the easy place to find and link.
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Why would you bother making a DIMM that has ECC internally but doesn't bring those lines out to the connector? It's a tiny amount of extra work to design and then costs literally nothing per unit. Well, I suppose there will be some slightly higher failure rate due to bad PCBs where only the ECC lines are bad and everything else is good, but that's got to be a very very small number.
CPUs that don't support ECC (Intel) will just ignore those extra signals.
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For the same reason that ECC isn't more widespread. Intel decided to use it as a market segment ploy, and since they were the 500 lb gorilla their decisions had wider industry impact.
Its one of their many failings, which is why most of the industry isn't sheading a tear given their recent misfortune.
There are many other ways they have held back the industry (pcie's lagging perf, and an engineering focus on pushing server designs into desktops/etc.) and some of those poor long term decisions are returning th
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Why would you bother making a DIMM that has ECC internally but doesn't bring those lines out to the connector
It's unfortunate. Basic reliability would call for all I/O devices to have ECC protection regarding transmitted bits.
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I find the quote to be a bit misleading.
" 57.6 GB/s transfer speeds on a single channel."
That is not yet in the realm to give iGPU's any leverage against dGPU's.
BUT
115.2GB/s is GTX 1050(Ti) (128bit bus) or a GTX 960 (128bit bus) level of performance. iGPU's are like 20GB/sec because of the system bandwidth.
So if desktop PC's could triple-channel or quad-channel DDR5, that would be sufficient to not need a dedicated GPU for things like CAD workstations (which demand 112GB+.) It would also remove the need for
7200Mbps with an astronomical CL57 (Score:2)
Re:7200Mbps with an astronomical CL57 (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know where you get CL57, but if that's accurate, then it's a latency of 15.8ns at the speed specified.
So about 10% higher latency than a DDR4-2933 with CL21. It's a more accurate reflection of the real world implications than trying to compare CAS latency numbers directly.
And yet most laptops max out at 16GB (Score:3)
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True .... although I have a 15" gaming laptop (Micro Center's "house brand" that I believe was actually made by Sager) that has 32GB of RAM installed in it. And the 16" Macbook Pro with Intel CPU from last year is sold in 32GB and 64GB configurations.
I think you've stopped seeing the race to add more storage or RAM to consumer desktops and laptops though.... It's tapered off because the priorities have become things like "more battery life", plus a tendency to do more cloud computing. (I used to care abo
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Even those shiny new M1 Macbooks do. It's been 18 years since AMD brought 64 bit mainstream, and yet we are stuck with only a few multiples above 32-bit.
Well, you know what they used to say around the old abacus factory...
"64 beads ought to be enough for anybody..."
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Most laptops bought after 2015 will max out at 64 GB actually, if you're willing to open them and replace their memory. Tip: buy your laptop with only a single slot occupied, that way you can double it yourself as most will have a spare slot. Good luck doing that on those "one-size-fits-all-and-you'll-like-it" systems though.
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I remember when Al Yankovic sang about his PC having 100GB of RAM. On the high end desktop that's a reality now, for laptops not so much.
Apple solders RAM to the CPU now, Intel just intentionally limits their mobile CPUs for some reason. Probably to segment the market and prevent mobile CPUs being used elsewhere.
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The M1 uses 4266 MT/s LPDDR4X SDRAM. The SoC and RAM chips are mounted together in a system-in-a-package design. [wikipedia.org]
With these new chips, I'm expecting Apple to offer 16GB and 32GB options for their next M1/M1X/M2 Macs.
Chrome (Score:3)
Will that be enough to get Chrome to run with several tabs open?
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It's totally not just a memory problem. A bunch of Chrome tabs left open with Google's own apps in them (slides, sheets, gmail etc.) will eventually use up all the CPU
Commas (Score:1)
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Which commas are unnecessary? The sentences are a bit long, but not incorrect AFAICT.
Hafnium RFC (Score:3)
Article says little more than the summary...
Developed by Intel, it uses hafnium instead of silicon, with metals replacing the normal polysilicon gate electrodes. All of that allows for higher chip densities, while reducing current leakage.
If anyone is familiar with the tech being talked about, can they say whether this would apply to all, erm, 'silicon', i.e. might we be seeing hafnium processors or other IC's?
(I'm guessing not, but that doesn't stop a slight frisson of hope...)
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Hmm, interesting. Thanks.
The way it was written (above) suggested to me that the entire silicon wafer was being replaced with hafnium but, on doing a bit of further browsing, it doesn't seem that this is the case. Tbh I barely understand the basics of semiconductors, so the complexities of microprocessor design / etching tend to go well above my head, but would I be correct in thinking that the 45nm figure you give relates to the thickness of the layers (in the gate), not to the width of the laser used to e
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Hmm, interesting. Thanks.
The way it was written (above) suggested to me that the entire silicon wafer was being replaced with hafnium but, on doing a bit of further browsing, it doesn't seem that this is the case. Tbh I barely understand the basics of semiconductors, so the complexities of microprocessor design / etching tend to go well above my head, but would I be correct in thinking that the 45nm figure you give relates to the thickness of the layers (in the gate), not to the width of the laser used to etch the circuitry?
45 nanometers is the minimum lateral feature size.
Hafnium refers to hafnium oxide which is used for the transistor gate insulator in place of silicon oxide or silicon nitride. It has a higher dielectric constant (k) hence high-k dielectric. This results in a lower leakage transistor.