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MetaRAM quadruples DDR2 DIMM capacities, launches 8GB DIMMs

arstechnica.com — No, MetaRAM is not a modern-day version of "Memory Doubler" from the DOS days. Instead, the new fabless semi company has some hardware tricks up its sleeve that let it massively increase DDR2 DIMM capacities.

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  • tj111, on 02/25/2008, -12/+70This will be a huge boost for solid-state computing. Imagine keeping your entire hard drive loaded in memory, you could boot in about a second.
  • verusdies, on 02/25/2008, -13/+1I can't imagine overcloaking these babies...drools
    • LordKaT, on 02/25/2008, -0/+15Damn you and our overcloaking, Khan!
    • ZachSka87, on 02/25/2008, -1/+2Probably won't help you a damn bit because of the power constraints of the chip. But go ahead and try. We'll watch you blow up your pretty new RAM.
    • revhughes, on 02/25/2008, -0/+6Invisible RAM? Imagine the possibilities!
  • slvrbullet87, on 02/25/2008, -5/+23Couple of sticks of this would be insane, 32g ram system would be just unbelievable
    • evil-doer, on 02/25/2008, -4/+14unbelievable? you cant believe it? most desktops nowadays have 2-4 gigs. its not THAT much more.
      • Sliver85, on 02/25/2008, -5/+16Yeah... only 16x-32x more than an average system nowadays, that's nothing...

        /sarcasm
      • cerejota, on 02/25/2008, -0/+10yeah 10 years ago 64mb was unbelivable. I wont be happy until I have 250GB ram and a 10 terabyte solidstate drive.

        (Although I had 512mb ram back in 1994 with DASH custom Mac...)
        • counterplex, on 02/25/2008, -0/+3pfft! 10TB RAM, 10PB solid state drive and 1Tbps fiber connection to the 'net for me and I'll die happy :)
          • Antwan718, on 02/26/2008, -0/+4why would you want a slow 1Tbps when you could get a TBps ;)
        • dbzlotrfan, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1I'd probably rather have 100 TB of RAM & lest 100 TB of hardrive space (exactly 100 or more) . . . . .
      • dshPls, on 02/25/2008, -1/+4It's only possible in Vista x64, OS X and Linux though. XP and Vista 32-bit are only able to address up to 4 gigs of memory, a gig of which will disappear because of other memory in your system. All the aforementioned OS's aren't suitable for gaming, so what's the point...
    • yabos, on 02/25/2008, -9/+1You could put 128GB RAM in a Mac Pro which supports 32 GB now. That'd be amazing. Yes I know it's not the only computer that can handle that much RAM.
      • CATSCEO, on 02/25/2008, -1/+7If I'm not mistaken, you would still only be able to put 32 GB in the Mac Pro, just less sticks.
        • geminitojanus, on 02/26/2008, -0/+2No, you'd be able to put more RAM in the same system with fewer sticks. 64-bit architectures natively support gobs and gobs of RAM (18 exabytes), but what stops you from actually using that amount of RAM are all physical properties. These guys figured out how to squeeze more RAM into the same modules using 3d architectures, faster modules and memory buffering.

          The only problem is, these are regular DIMMs and not FB-DIMMs, so the Mac Pro couldn't use them anyways. But being able to take a regular 4-slot DDR2 motherboard and throw in 64GB of RAM instead of 8-16GB is a huge improvement.
      • fuzzynyanko, on 02/25/2008, -0/+3That would allow 256 Gigs on some server boards. I think Windows x64 officially supports 128 gigs at the moment...
    • chris9902, on 02/25/2008, -2/+32With that sort of power you'd be able to run Crysis on medium.
      • Antwan718, on 02/26/2008, -0/+2No no no, you still need Quad SLI 9800 GX2's and an octocore 4.6Ghz proc
    • daridave, on 02/25/2008, -2/+3unbelievable and worthless, too. 8GB I welcome -- I use my 4 fully. But 32? I'm sure there's a few was to use that, but you really have too much money if you spend it on 32GB of RAM.
      • Talden, on 02/25/2008, -2/+24GB for applications, a few measly bucks.

        An extra 28GB for disk-cache?

        Priceless.

        If this the train out of Disk-thrash Central then I'm buying me a ticket...
        • geminitojanus, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1Rebooting would suck. Having to flush 28GBs of RAM back to disk: pain in the ass.
      • oldhick, on 02/25/2008, -0/+2I run virtual machines on my workstations and RAM is the limiting factor I'm facing. This would be extremely useful.
      • ubergeek09, on 02/25/2008, -0/+2Like oldhick said it would be useful for virtual machines. It would all be useful for 3D modeling and CAD.
      • Nitesmoke, on 02/25/2008, -1/+4Just a few years ago, 256mb ram was a lot. I remember when I ugraded to that and bought a 32mb Voo-Doo so I could play this cool new game called "Half-Life." That was in '98. 10 years later, I upgrade to 2g and a 256mb video card to play "Half-Life 2." This is still a mid-level system, with the top systems being much more powerful, and even then games like "Crysis," tax those systems, so in 10 years from now I bet 32g will be a mid-level system. And it won't seem that fast. The software will use it just like today, my pc in '97 felt just as "fast" as this one and it had a Pentium 2.
    • steelclash84, on 02/25/2008, -1/+2Can you even use 32gb? I thought most cpus would limit the amount of usable addresses to 16gb (ie 64-bit architecture on DDR2 as opposed to FM-DRAM)...or am I mistaken?
      • fuzzynyanko, on 02/25/2008, -0/+3Windows x64 officially supports up to "128+ gigs of RAM"
        • iofthestorm, on 02/26/2008, -0/+2That's only the Business and Ultimate versions of Vista though, I think the Home Premium x64 supports somewhere around 16 or 32GB. But by the time you'd actually need that much for home uses, Windows 7 or 8 will be out so it won't matter.
    • uziko, on 02/25/2008, -2/+4right now even when playing a game you aren't using more than 1.5 GB or ram, so it would not give any performance boost
    • grumpyrain, on 02/26/2008, -0/+3[/ insert joke about quantity of RAM required to run Vista ]
    • zongamin, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1Just having more ram doesn't mean anything unless you are going to use.
  • Whatever6750, on 02/25/2008, -10/+6I can see this being useful for laptops.
    • GT35R, on 02/25/2008, -1/+10only laptops?
      • satanswetnipple, on 02/25/2008, -0/+2On the consumer end... ESPECIALLY laptops. Lower power, more densly packed hardware, larger capacity without adding more sockets.

        So why won't desktops be able to fully utilise the extra RAM in the near future?

        The dirty little secret of XP was that it could not utilise more than 2GB of RAM per program. The dirty little secret of OSX is that is can't utilise more than 4GB of RAM per program. I do not know about Vista. I have run into fanatics on both sides who obviously get very upset at these facts and they will go down fighting them. There are very few reasons to add a lot of RAM onto a single machine. Virtualisation is one, but the users of Virtualisation software are like any self deluded group. They believe that because they are interested, that every other human is interested. The reality is that virtualisation is a niche, few people will ever use it. Average users have trouble keeping one OS running, multiple versions of the same OS, or various running OS's for the average user is just fantasy.

        For other software. I can paint up the largest size poster in 1.5GB using a dozen layers in Photoshop. Some HD video editing can need 4GB (yes many video editors add 8-32 GB on their powermacs, but with the RAM limitation per program, they mostly wasting their money to peacock around with the most RAM). Databases in RAM may become large, but this is hardly a common use for an end user. "Power Applications" are not really going to utilise 32GB of RAM.

        My one worry though, is that the more RAM and storage you give programmers, the lazier they become. I have been seeing this since the 80's. For a while, they were using machine code to fit code in, then they needed to add operability... but for the past 15 years, they have been reinventing the wheel, but with every generation, the wheel has been getting larger... so now we are teetering on top of something that looks like a penny farthing.
        • Steeple, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1un-right, extra ram in photoshop beyond osx's 4gig limit becomes a disk cashe (effectively a ram drive)
    • superal1394, on 02/25/2008, -0/+4Why is he being Dugg down? its true. Being able to wedge 16 gigs into a laptop would be awesome.
    • stoanhart, on 02/26/2008, -0/+3How is this possible useful for laptops? If you are doing work so intensive that it requires more than 4 GB of ram, you most likely should be looking at a high-end workstation.

      This is useful for servers, or people who work with multimedia.
      • Antwan718, on 02/26/2008, -1/+1Your missing the point, it could replace all laptop hard drives with something much faster to increase the profamance and power consumption, the ram dosent need to spin a motor to find the data, soley page a sector of itself. Laptops will benifit from this just as much as a desktop or server would IF its applied correctly,
        • zongamin, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1Stop confusing RAM with solid state storage.
  • tgc1, on 02/25/2008, -12/+0Anything that pushes forward the SSD revolution is fine by me. These spinning disks are the last thing I will hear from my computer making noise. Clickity-Clack-Clickity-Clack.
    • Scynet, on 02/25/2008, -0/+15This replaces DRAM, not the hard drive.
    • s1mph0ny, on 02/25/2008, -0/+5Stop buying seagates, problem solved.
  • skatastrophy, on 02/25/2008, -1/+18"In short, MetaRAM's technology enables DIMM capacity increases of two or four times, so that a single DDR2 MetaSDRAM DIMM can hold 4GB or 8GB of memory while still being a drop-in replacement for a normal DIMM."

    The article doesn't mention when this technology will be available for a Normal Joe like me (someone who can't afford their $50k server with 256Gig of ram). Does anyone have an idea when these DIMMs will hit the market?
    • Neoanarchist, on 02/25/2008, -1/+8It does. It said the technology would be available to servers and workstations (thats you Joe) in the second quarter.
      Correct me if I'm wrong, but thats what I grasped from the article.
    • geminitojanus, on 02/26/2008, -1/+1The whole point of saying "50k" servers is to give you some realization of just how damned expensive these things are going to be. They're not intended for Desktop users, but maybe workstation and server clients who actually can utilize systems with that amount of RAM. The normal home user doesn't need more than a gigabyte of today's current stuff, we're not projected to hit the 4gb requirement for another 2 to 4 years (depending on how aggressive the content push becomes in the upcoming years), so it's way off the map for Joes.

      However, being able to take your existing 128GB database server and upgrade it to 512GB may be reason enough to spend the $64,000 on new modules.
      • Acolyte357, on 02/26/2008, -0/+2"The whole point of saying "50k" servers is to give you some realization of just how damned expensive these things are going to be." Err actually that would be rather cheap.
  • wbienek, on 02/25/2008, -11/+4No one 'tool' needs that much ram.. its for "REAL" multi-taskers who run many many many tools (things) at once.. ;)


    • badave, on 02/25/2008, -1/+4Hmm, whenever someone says something like this, I just think of all the times people have said that we don't need to progress anymore and know that you comment is an EPIC FAIL.
      • wbienek, on 02/25/2008, -4/+1My comment about no one TOOL needs.. was in reference to jawntahnur up above with -16 digs who said..

        "What tool would need that much ram? I bet a nerdy dumbass lol"




    • thugok, on 02/25/2008, -1/+3Having multiple chat windows open is not multitasking.
    • subcomandante, on 02/25/2008, -1/+3Alright Ballmer.
  • bitterman316, on 02/25/2008, -3/+15Quadruples? Oh my God, that´s like, four times!
  • grodrigu, on 02/25/2008, -11/+4All your RAM are belong to us
  • Neem, on 02/25/2008, -1/+8When can I start buying their stock ?
    • Neoanarchist, on 02/25/2008, -0/+6Lol I immediately checked google finance to see if they were public. It doesn't appear that they are but I sure as ***** will be watching them for when they do go public.
  • peterjmag, on 02/25/2008, -1/+45I bet we'll still hear loads of people complaining about how their 32-bit OS is only addressing 3.5GB of that...
    • MarkusGarvey, on 02/25/2008, -6/+3it said that it that each dimm had a chipset on it that handles addressing the memory above the 4Gb limit...same trick that they use to go over the 32Gb limit on HDD's...
      • Acolyte357, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1Yes, it can break the HARDWARE cap, but it can not magically make your OS address the extra ram.
  • plunderphonics, on 02/25/2008, -16/+1Anytime I hear anything about solid-state drives improving makes me smile...can't ever have too much RAM
    • Scynet, on 02/25/2008, -0/+13I guess you're not smiling now then, considering this has nothing to do with solid-state drives.
  • oilcan, on 02/25/2008, -11/+2too bad there aren't any normal motherboards that support DIMMS that big XD
    • Scynet, on 02/25/2008, -0/+11The special chip in the RAM acts as a memory controller for RAM and vice versa.
    • oilcan, on 02/25/2008, -0/+5oh yeah, RTFA FTW? :P
    • Neoanarchist, on 02/25/2008, -0/+4Dumbass.
  • hollywoodphony, on 02/25/2008, -0/+40This should really help my system speed up when playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure, right?
    • counterplex, on 02/25/2008, -0/+4No, too many indoor levels. Try My Little Pony and I - all those outdoor environments will fully utilize all your resources.
  • greevar, on 02/25/2008, -2/+4I'd like to make a HDD out of that for my desktop. Load times during games? None.
  • msmearcheck, on 02/25/2008, -13/+6Go ahead and put 8GB+ of RAM in a laptop and see how long the battery lasts.
    • oilcan, on 02/25/2008, -0/+8RTFA my friend, RTFA
    • blueskydiver76, on 02/25/2008, -0/+12FTA "I asked Rajan to compare and contrast MetaRAM with FB-DIMM in terms of power draw, and he told me that the typical FB-DIMM's AMB draws 5 to 7 watts. The MetaRAM chipset, in contrast, draws only 2.5 watts on the high end, and the power draw scales linearly with usage."
      I'm guessing you might even see an improvement.
    • GT35R, on 02/25/2008, -2/+4RAM does not consume that much power of god sakes.
    • Neoanarchist, on 02/25/2008, -1/+9Goddamn does anyone read the ***** articles on digg anymore? It draws less power than an FB-DIMM (about 2.5 compared to 5 - 7 watts) because it has technology that wakes up the proper areas of the RAM before its use. The article also states it rises linearly with use. So it probably pulls about as much as an equal amount of ram on two (3 or 4 for that matter) DIMMs with the same usage.
      Jesus christ Diggers, READ THE ***** ARTICLES BEFORE POSTING.
  • chris3435, on 02/25/2008, -2/+7I am more interested in the benchmarks.
  • GT35R, on 02/25/2008, -9/+3I honestly think that 4GB of RAM is all that people will ever need.

    / sarcasm
  • gplpark92, on 02/25/2008, -5/+3so now i can max out Crysis at 1920x1200 and get 18fps instead of 8!
  • grexeo, on 02/25/2008, -8/+4Errm, am I missing something? You're still restricted to what your chipset supports, which in most cases is hard limited to 2 or 4GB per slot...
    • oldhick, on 02/25/2008, -1/+3Yes you are missing something, like reading the article: "Because MetaRAM's high-capacity DIMMs look to an Intel or AMD system like normal DDR2 DIMMs..." and "We had to make our chip look like a DRAM to the memory controller, and like a memory controller to the DRAMs"
      • merrychristmass, on 02/26/2008, -0/+2Its not how it looks to MOBO. it is , it will not acces more than 3 GB under 32bit windows.
    • heiroglyph, on 02/25/2008, -1/+2You got dug down, but I wondered the same thing.

      There are only so many address lines from the chipset to the DIMM. I'd like to see details on exactly how this can work on an existing motherboard. It doesn't seem possible that a better DIMM is all that is needed.

      It's quite possible that with this RAM in a consumer motherboard you could max out your chipsets RAM capacity with a single DIMM, but not go beyond that.

      With a server board with a better chipset, you could fill each slot with larger DIMMS than would normally be possible, but I don't see how exceeding the chipsets designed maximum capacity would ever be possible.

      Unless the number of DIMM slots is the limiting factor, I suspect that there is no benefit in capacity, only power consumption.
    • Rekzai, on 02/25/2008, -0/+2Yes you are missing something.
  • fancyj, on 02/25/2008, -5/+11Nobody will ever need more than 640k of ram.
  • RealJimShady, on 02/25/2008, -4/+3It's "memory maker" from the DOS days, not "memory doubler".
  • ThEDeMoNKiNg, on 02/25/2008, -5/+8*fap fap fap*
    • greenlight2001, on 02/25/2008, -0/+10Put down the picture of your sister and read the article.
  • pyrates, on 02/25/2008, -3/+2Now my 8 gb of ram seems like its a small amount. Damn technology.
  • Rekzai, on 02/25/2008, -3/+1Thank you Kevin Federline.
  • BambinosKrib, on 02/25/2008, -5/+1That's hot.
  • headphonz, on 02/25/2008, -4/+2From a geek's perspective, it makes me salivate! But from a practical perspective, I don't think current OS's can even take that much RAM. Doesn't OSX and windoze max out at 4gb?
    • SuperSunny, on 02/25/2008, -1/+2Nah! The only thing that locks out is the 32-Bit OS. 64-Bit Windows can take 4+. Normally it's limited at 3.

      Every single new Mac right now can take 4+, because OS X runs 64-bit (unless you have a first-gen MacBook like me >
      • satanswetnipple, on 02/25/2008, -1/+1Correct, yet incorrect. OSX is limited to 4GB... per program (code and data). I am a power user that needs RAM more than anything, and I researched just what OSX is capable of. This makes all those HD video editors using Final Cut on their 32GB Power Macs a little foolish. For an installed application like this, 6GB would be all you need. If you have a video editing machine, and that is all it is used for, you have the maximum 4GB, plus 2GB for OS and caching. If you want to cache more, than install 8GB. Anything more is like buying a Lamborghini Diablo to look good to the ladies as you drive to the store for potatoes (can we say tiny penis?).
        • headphonz, on 02/26/2008, -1/+0that makes my old Dell sitting in the closet with a 6gb HARD DRIVE seem like '74 Pinto!
        • Steeple, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1more wrong! apps can cache data in the free ram, so you still get lots of performance gain
          • Steeple, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1on a basic, basic level you can run multiple ram disks (my penis is worryingly large and makes all the pretty, gay, goth girls think twice
          • Steeple, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1you're checking my profile , aren't you :-)
  • directrix13, on 02/25/2008, -1/+3Alright!!!! Now I can finally 'sudo apt-get install preload' !!!!!!!
  • L0g1X, on 02/25/2008, -1/+0Is it possible to run 64-bit windows and install 32-bit windows with Virtual PC?
  • bdbElysian, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1This is perfect for machines with space restrictions like notebook/laptops and all-in-one desktops like an iMac. Drop on 1 8GB stick in a machines only RAM slot and then you have all the RAM you'd need but still only needing 1 single slot.
  • merrychristmass, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1and now we need OS which will support this huge memory natively. As far i know anything 32bit will not.
  • RexxxMaster, on 02/26/2008, -1/+1sweet now i can get i-RAM and have more then girly 4gb limit. yes i said girly any girls going to get mad at me...? or is there a better product then iram? http://techreport.com/articles.x/9312
  • hugejimmy, on 02/26/2008, -1/+1lol submitted by KevinFederline
  • speedwank, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1Apart from all the frantic jerking off...(and trying not to defile your keyboard) The perfect "God Box" could start with this motherboard.....http://www.govconnection.com/IPA/Shop/Product/Deta ... Yes, I know it's 1500 bucks but that's hardly the point...
    Now add some fat MetaRam 8GB sticks (plant 16 of 'em judicously because you got 32 slots, of which you must populate 16)
    Add several of these SSD's: http://www.nextlevelhardware.com/storage/battleshi ...

    Now you have somewhat of a "hedge against obsolescence" as well as a personal supercomputer which will be - without question - the fastest box in your town/city/state.

    At a certain point, price becomes completely irrelevant :)
  • sandeeptec, on 02/26/2008, -1/+1when does it will available in India / Delhi
  • carlosguitar, on 02/26/2008, -0/+0Finally I will able to run Windows Vista.
  • haterofps3, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1So does this technology work with DDR3-DDR4 will this show up in future Graphics Cards and consoles or is this just patch work to the current generation of volatile memory?
  • penguin64, on 02/26/2008, -0/+1OK.. a little detail since most of you think the DIMM market revolves around Joe Home User and his WoW system and it doesn't seem many of you took the time to read their website...

    - MetaRAM's chips are sold to DIMM manufacturers (samsung, hynix, smart etc.)
    - You would just need to buy new DIMMs to take advantage of MetaRAM's technology
    - They should just drop in and work in any DDR2 RDIMM system
    - These DIMMs are Registered DDR2 DIMMs.. they ONLY work on Opteron's and some Xeon's
    - These DIMMs are targeted at Workstations and Data Centers
    - There is enormous need in 1U to 32U servers to increase memory
    - These are NOT for your everyday 32bit Windows XP user using WWW/email/WoW
    - If you have a Xeon or Opteron MoBo at home you can use these DIMMs
    - 32 bit OSs are limited to 4GB of physical memory
    - there are kernel flags in both 32bit Windows (server) and Linux to read more than 4GB of physical memory, but you take a performance hit due to address translation etc.
    - 64 bit OSs have their own physical memory limits set by the Microsoft/RH/Suse based on what they have tested and support
    - 64 bit CPUs support much higher amounts
    - 64 bit MoBos have their own limits based on chipset/rank #/dimm slots etc..

    - They are developing DDR3

    - these will NOT work in laptops, Athlon64, or Intel Core systems
  •  

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