

Intel planning to get rid of DRAM on PCs - alecco
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/09/07/intel-to-do-away-with-dram-in-pcs/
Initially I didn't like the idea. But thinking it better it might be actually good. The big PC bottleneck nowadays is DRAM. A big on-die/stacked memory at many times faster bandwidth and lower latency could be a game changer.<p>And anyway, nowadays the usual advice to clients is to max out the RAM on purchase since it's a mess to replace (be it a non-technical user or a datacenter cluster with critical uptime) and the specific configuration of RAM will become pricer per GB in the mid term (because the market moves constantly forward to different versions).<p>And also note one of the main reasons some algorithms run faster on GPUs is the memory bandwidth bottleneck. If Intel gets rid of the BW problem it's a level game againsta Nvidia.<p>This move would allow Intel to have some custom performance tricks. For example, memset multiple GB in a fraction of the time.
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sitharus
That article has no technical information at all, it seems to be pure click-
bait.

Does anyone know more? Are they moving the RAM or replacing with some flash
derivative? Something else?

~~~
joedoe55555
I think they want to move the CPU into the hard drive so Oracle is faster
(IA64)

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jsz0
I assume they mean memory will be integrated into the CPU package itself? If
that provides for faster RAM, smaller computers, and greater power efficiency
I would find it to be an acceptable trade-off. I've found over the years my
RAM needs are tied pretty closely to my CPU needs. Today I can get by fine
with 8GB but by the time I need 16 or 32GB I will probably want a newer CPU as
well. So doing this all in one package wouldn't bother me. I'm guessing on
desktops/servers there would be some ability to add slower modular RAM to
compliment the faster RAM integrated into the CPU?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Wouldn't the slower RAM mean either inconsistent performance (yuck), or having
to slow down the CPU memory? (like today's user RAM with a slow and fast card)

~~~
streety
It would depend on how the slower RAM was treated. Boosting the memory to
support memcache for example would seem to make sense.

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andreasvc
So what are they replacing it with?!

EDIT: from the comments I get the impression that they want to move the memory
closer to the CPU.

~~~
aristidb
Stacked DRAM, if I understand it correctly.

~~~
dbecker
I hadn't heard of stacked DRAM. For anyone else looking for a reference, I
liked <http://blogs.intel.com/research/2011/09/15/hmc/>

The description of "getting rid of DRAM" sounds misleading if this is what
they are deploying.

~~~
molmalo
From that article: "This groundbreaking prototype has 10 times the bandwidth
and 7 times the energy efficiency than even the most advanced DDR3 memory
module available."

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alecco
(argh)

1 point by alecco 2 hours ago | link | parent [dead]

Initially I didn't like the idea. But thinking it better it might be actually
good. The big PC bottleneck nowadays is DRAM. A big on-die/stacked memory at
many times faster bandwidth and lower latency could be a game changer. And
anyway, nowadays the usual advice to clients is to max out the RAM on purchase
since it's a mess to replace (be it a non-technical user or a datacenter
cluster with critical uptime) and the specific configuration of RAM will
become pricer per GB in the mid term (because the market moves constantly
forward to different versions).

And also note one of the main reasons some algorithms run faster on GPUs is
the memory bandwidth bottleneck. If Intel gets rid of the BW problem it's a
level game againsta Nvidia.

This move would allow Intel to have some custom performance tricks. For
example, memset multiple GB in a fraction of the time.

------
vrodic
I think they may be referring to non volatile (phase change) memory.

More details in this LWN article:

<http://lwn.net/Articles/498283/> and here:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-change_memory>

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ksec
Is not that DRAM is dead, it is simply Intel will be putting Memory Cube, or
Stacked DRAM or TSV Memory what ever you wanted to call it in the CPU die
itself. Stacked DRAM provides up to 1Tbit/s of bandwidth. More then the
current Graphics Card has.

As SSD gets faster every year, we need less memory to cache off the content
where we used to need for performance reason from a HDD. With Windows 8 i have
been using less then 4GB of Ram including standby, with Virtual Memory turned
off. ( I have 16GB of Memory ). The future CPU die could easily stack 4 1Gbit
DRAM with 8 layers of up to 4GB of Memory. Coupled with a SSD that goes up to
2GB/s transfer.

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forgotusername
Any comments on why alecco's (seemingly informative) comment is dead?
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4496441>

~~~
dangrossman
The usual cause is double-posting. Submit the comment form twice accidentally,
see two copies of your comment, delete one, now you see one copy and leave. HN
auto-killed the duplicate, but your own comments never appear dead to you,
only to others -- so you end up deleting the copy everyone else saw, while
leaving only the dead one.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
I don't know about you, but for my double-posts, one always appears as dead to
me.

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chemmail
Even with intensive app usage (whole office/adobe suite), 4 web browsers with
2-5 dozen tabs in each, two dozen utilities, maybe SC2 or GW2 running, no
reboot in months, I can maybe fill up half my 16GB. I see people really only
needing 8GB unless you are doing VM.

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alecco
Very relevant demo of Intel-Micron a year ago of a Hybrid Memory cube with
stacked DRAM:

<http://blogs.intel.com/research/2011/09/15/hmc/>

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jules
How much of the memory latency is in the connection between the CPU and the
RAM, and how much is inside the RAM itself?

