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Want a PC With 192 GB of RAM?

ericatcw writes "Do you love the smooth, silky performance of a multi-core PC loaded to the gills with the fastest RAM? Take a look at Dell's new Precision T7500 desktop. According to Computerworld, the T7500 will come with 12 memory slots that can accommodate 16 GB of PC-106000 (1333 MHz) DDR3 RAM for a total of 192 GB. Dell's not the only one — Lenovo, Cisco (with blade servers reportedly up to 384 GB in memory) and Apple are all bringing out computers that leverage Intel's new Nehalem architecture to enable unprecedented amounts of RAM. But beware! Despite the depressed DRAM market, loading up on memory could see the cost of RAM eclipse the cost of the rest of your PC by 20-fold or more."

64 of 353 comments (clear)

  1. Got that? by qoncept · · Score: 2, Insightful

    loading up on memory could see the cost of RAM eclipse the cost of the rest of your PC by 20-fold or more

    Uhh, yeah. Try 1000-fold! You know, since we're just making things up.

    While we're at it.. I love when people say "Up to 10x OR MORE!" Like, anywhere from 0 to infinity. Nice.

    --
    Whale
    1. Re:Got that? by Shakrai · · Score: 2, Funny

      Uhh, yeah. Try 1000-fold! You know, since we're just making things up.

      That's not true. 95% of all quoted statistics are accurate ;)

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    2. Re:Got that? by dave420 · · Score: 5, Informative

      Or you could read the article and see that if you buy said Dell at $1,800, and fill it up with RAM from Dell, you end up paying $50,760, which is over 20-fold. But please don't let the article get in the way of you bitching about the article. Where's the fun in that?

    3. Re:Got that? by just_another_sean · · Score: 2, Funny

      Well sure, 75% of those surveyed knew that!

      --
      Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
    4. Re:Got that? by Achromatic1978 · · Score: 4, Funny

      So by that metric, Apple will probably want in the order of $100,000 for their offering, given their attitudes towards RAM pricing. Of course, the Apple faithful will still defend it as being "higher quality", "but it's fully buffered and ECC", but yet recommending despite these details, "that no-one who knows /anything/ buys their RAM from Apple".

    5. Re:Got that? by The+Grim+Reefer2 · · Score: 2, Funny

      -40 is less than 10, after all,

      Yes, but at least it's the same in Celsius and Fahrenheit.

    6. Re:Got that? by gtall · · Score: 4, Funny

      Windows 8

    7. Re:Got that? by lordtoran · · Score: 3, Funny

      But after booting he will notice there is no more RAM free for applications.

      --
      Want to hear the voice of GOD? cat /boot/vmlinuz > /dev/dsp
    8. Re:Got that? by OVDoobie · · Score: 5, Funny

      5/4 of people have trouble with fractions.

    9. Re:Got that? by FunkyELF · · Score: 3, Funny

      Take a piece of paper and fold it 20 times... it will be 1,048,576 times as thick.

      20 fold is 2^20

      so.. (2 ** 20) * $1800 == 1.887436800 Billion Dollars

      So..somebody is wrong. Didn't read TFA to tell whether it is you or the article.

    10. Re:Got that? by timster · · Score: 3, Funny

      I like to run a 64-bit version of Python and make a really big list. Or, you can run Java programs (for a while) with GC disabled.

      --
      I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
    11. Re:Got that? by angelwolf71885 · · Score: 2, Funny

      no sorry DNFE requires 500 GB of ram

    12. Re:Got that? by Harodotus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm sure the design targets memory intensive applications like VMware ESX virtualization hosting servers. (You could also use Solaris Zones or Xen Server)

      With 8-16GB of ram statically assigned to each Guest VM (Virtual Machine), 128GB only covers 7 to 15 hosted Servers (less ESX memory overhead)

      If you're doing VDI (Virtualized Desktops with Vista), that's only up to 31 VM PCs per blade.

      Storage is commonly not an issue/botteneck since a SAN is often used (It works even with VMotion).

      --
      Its not users who are broken, it's systems not taking account their likely behaviour and fixing it technically.
    13. Re:Got that? by QRDeNameland · · Score: 2, Funny

      Load the whole OS into ramdisk at bootup. Then have fun.

      The whole OS? Most /.ers could load their entire porn collection into ramdisk with 192GB.

      --
      Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
    14. Re:Got that? by MatthewCCNA · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes, but 27.68 % of the people who have trouble with fractions think they understand statistics.

      --
      "He is so stupid. And now back to the wall!" Moe Szyslak
    15. Re:Got that? by Nathrael · · Score: 3, Funny

      Combo breaker!

      --
      A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
    16. Re:Got that? by UnknowingFool · · Score: 4, Funny

      I have no idea what I'd do with almost 100 gig of RAM, except maybe turn-off the hard drive caching to speed things up.

      This is slashdot. The acceptable answers are:

      1. Running Vista
      2. Playing Crysis
      3. Hosting a bittorrent of the Library of Congress
      4. pr0n

      Now turn in your geek card.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    17. Re:Got that? by smoker2 · · Score: 2, Informative

      speak for yourself ...

    18. Re:Got that? by Fujisawa+Sensei · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I like to run a 64-bit version of Python and make a really big list. Or, you can run Java programs (for a while) with GC disabled.

      But Windows will still push the Java app out to the swap file, and load all the Microsoft apps installed on your system into memory, just in case you want them.

      --
      If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
    19. Re:Got that? by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 2, Informative

      The idea behind 192GB across 8 cores (or 16 if you are marketing), is to run several virtual OSes at once.

      Allegedly this is considered a good idea in the IT industry.

    20. Re:Got that? by nabsltd · · Score: 2, Informative

      I know you had tongue-in-cheek, but one of the big advantages of Nehalem (i.e., Core i7) is that it does not require fully-buffered memory.

      This reduces the initial cost and power requirements (and thus the lifetime cost).

    21. Re:Got that? by Thinboy00 · · Score: 3, Funny

      and 2.629% of comments are so-called "Combo breaker"s. About 90% of them work ;). In other news: 2.6.29% of people don't understand decimal points, oddly enough.

      --
      $ make available
    22. Re:Got that? by Fishbulb · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Video editing.

      Hollywood will load up on these systems.

  2. This shall do by TheCybernator · · Score: 3, Funny

    to run Vista. Finally h/w is catching up!!

    1. Re:This shall do by dtml-try+MyNick · · Score: 2, Funny

      Still......could it run Crysis on Vista?

      --
      Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.
    2. Re:This shall do by ausekilis · · Score: 2, Funny

      RAM on main board != RAM on video card. Maybe once my GeForce/Radeon card has 16 bays for PC10600 I can run Crysis...

    3. Re:This shall do by eebra82 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why are people still modding these comments as funny? Granted, Vista required quite a bit of power on the day of its release, but performance has since then improved and new hardware is more than capable of handling Vista.

      I bought a medium range computer a year and a half ago and it runs Vista as fast as XP.

    4. Re:This shall do by Jamie's+Nightmare · · Score: 5, Funny

      Why are people still modding these comments as funny?

      Linux Zealots are the ones doing the modding. To them, comments like these are not only funny, but provide a kind of sexual release somewhat similar to viewing a nude photo of Deanna Troi.

      --
      "When you see a unixer brainwashed beyond saving, kick him out of the door." - Xah Lee
    5. Re:This shall do by the_humeister · · Score: 5, Funny

      To them, comments like these are not only funny, but provide a kind of sexual release somewhat similar to viewing a nude photo of Deanna Troi.

      OMG! Where???

    6. Re:This shall do by m.ducharme · · Score: 2, Funny

      I'd settle for a similar photo of Marina Sirtis, myself.

      --
      Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
  3. finallly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    at last, with 192GB ram, I can finally use Firefox.

    1. Re:finallly! by gnick · · Score: 4, Funny

      My memory is largely filled with things I saw on porn sites. I like it that way.

      Oh, wait. Did you mean RAM? Never mind.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  4. I hope they mean PC-10600 by Xocet_00 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, I don't. I'd love some PC-106000 RAM.

  5. Wow! by GeorgeMonroy · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can finally run like thousands of useless linux instances. =P

    --
    You got the touch!
    1. Re:Wow! by gandhi_2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why is there not a "+1 Oh, Snap!" mod?

  6. 24GB is not 192GB by wjh31 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    having just checked, DDR3 PC10600 only comes in 2GB at th moment, and even server sticks dont easily come in 16GB modules

    I dont see 8x capacity reaching consummers anytime soon anyway. This sorta thing is just silly, if you have enough money this has been available for ages, for the consumer this is still a long way off

    1. Re:24GB is not 192GB by BikeHelmet · · Score: 2, Informative

      ...are all bringing out computers that leverage Intel's new Nehalem architecture to enable unprecedented amounts of RAM.

      I seem to recall some Tyan Phenom boards being available with roughly that much RAM, announced last year. 4 sockets, 8 DIMMs per socket, if I remember right. 32*4GB = 128GB, which is pretty close.

      Ahh... here it is: http://www.dvhardware.net/article31242.html

      I recognize that it's just buzzwords/marketing and poor research, but they come off like Intel fanboys - like this is the first time 192GB of RAM has been "affordable" - if you can call it that.

      Then again, it's computerworld. The last 3 articles of theirs posted to /. were full of logic errors.

    2. Re:24GB is not 192GB by sshir · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What about Metaram DDR3 modules? Hynix started to roll them out.

      Basically they make largish modules using lower capacity (but much cheaper) chips, buffered in such way that to the system they look like slightly slower high capacity ones.

      There was a news story few days ago, saying that Intel just certified them.

  7. 4GB RAM Is All You Need... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2, Funny

    As my computer instructor said in 1991, the 4GB address space of a 32-bit CPU is all that you will ever need. Now that I have a computer with a 64-bit CPU/OS and 4GB RAM, I find it hard to justify upgrading more RAM (unless the price for another 4GB is dirt cheap) since running out of memory is not an issue.

  8. VM's by Tweaker_Phreaker · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Think of all the VM's you can run.

  9. Not enough... by grub · · Score: 4, Funny


    ...640 GB should be enough for anybody.

    --
    Trolling is a art,
    1. Re:Not enough... by Thaelon · · Score: 2, Funny

      I bookmarked that.

      We'll be laughing at you in 10 years or so!

      --

      Question everything

  10. Re:Will my computer take advantage of it? by egcagrac0 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Most assuredly, your morally lax computer will get the RAM a little too drunk and have its way...

  11. Re:Hmmm, who needs a hard drive. by CannonballHead · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hmm, I don't know. Not according to here... And according to an AMD page, "Energy-efficient DDR2 memory uses up to 30% less power than DDR1 and up to 58% less power than FBDIMM."

    According to here a DDR2 DIMM needs 4.4 watts. Let's round up to 10 watts and say each DIMM is, oh, 4gb (pretty low, I'd say). That's 48 DIMMs to get up to 192, 96 to get up to 384. At a whopping 10 watts (pretty high) that's still ~ 500W for 192gb and ~1000W for 384gb. Cut the wattage down to 5W per DIMM and you get half (250W, 500W). >1000W "home user" power supplies aren't too uncommon these days (1600W on tigerdirect.com...)

  12. What Intel giveth... by hwyhobo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...Microsoft shall taketh away.

    --
    End anonymous moderation and posting on /.
  13. yea, slashdot I know- RTFA by way2trivial · · Score: 5, Informative

    and see page 2 of it.

    "An 8GB DDR3 memory module of the same speed costs between about $250 and $300 today.

    The price of 16GB DDR3 modules remains far loftier, however. They were first announced this month by vendors such as Samsung Electronics and Smart Modular Technologies.

    Samsung won't say how much it plans to charge, but Smart is charging PC makers $3,400 today for 16GB 1333-MHz RAM modules, a Smart spokeswoman said."

    --
    every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
  14. Re:Hmmm, who needs a hard drive. by Joce640k · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Or.... you could do like this guy and make a RAID with 24 SSDs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs

    You'd get 6Tb of storage for half the cost of the machine in the article... much more useful, no UPS needed.

    --
    No sig today...
  15. I see you're not running Eclipse by Nicolas+MONNET · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Eclipse + VMWare ... you'll love every bit above 4G.

  16. Vista, schmista...! by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just think of how many Xterms you can open on that machine!

    --
    No sig today...
  17. Buy the RAM, get the server free! by mdf356 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A few years ago when I was working at IBM, I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation on the price of one of the pSeries line with 256GB of RAM. Given the commodity price for RAM for that kind of hardware, using 8x32GB cards, the cost for the RAM was about $1M USD. Which was about the price we charged for the box, with storage, CPUs, AIX license, etc. It was kind of like "buy the RAM, get the server free".

    --
    Terrorist, bomb, al Qaeda, nuclear, yellowcake, kill, assassinate. Carnivore is dead... long live Echelon.
  18. Please ban the word "leverage" by draevil · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Apple are all bringing out computers that leverage Intel's new Nehalem architecture"

    Please tell me I'm not the only one that cringed at this example of newspeak? The word is *use*. "Apple are bringing out computers that **use** Intel's new Nehalem architecture".

    The sentence isn't made any more profound, important or meaningful - no extra information is conveyed - by using faddish terms like "leverage"; designed exclusively to make MBAs sound like they have something to contribute (they usually don't).

    Besides all that the topic is pointless since everyone knows we won't need more than 640K. ;)

    1. Re:Please ban the word "leverage" by SlashDotDotDot · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The sentence isn't made any more profound, important or meaningful - no extra information is conveyed - by using faddish terms like "leverage"; designed exclusively to make MBAs sound like they have something to contribute (they usually don't).

      Normally I'd agree with you on this sort of thing, but I don't think "leverage" and "use" are equivalent here. To me, "leverage" implies that they are taking advantage of a tool that applies more force than some other, simpler, tool. Metaphorically, this is exactly the point they are making--Nehalem can do more than its predecessors, and Apple is using that advantage. This seems like a case where reasonable people could disagree.

      --
      /...
  19. Boot time by nickdc · · Score: 5, Funny

    Memory Testing: 1K OK

    ... 5 hours later

    Memory Testing: 201326592K OK

    Yea no thanks :)

  20. BZZZZT, wrong!!! by mangu · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is more than 6 orders of magnitude more RAM than anyone could possibly use.

    No.

    >>> import math
    >>> math.log10(192e9/640e3)
    5.4771212547196626

    Just 5.477 orders of magnitude more RAM.

  21. They weren't trying hard enough by El+Royo · · Score: 2, Funny

    Seriously, if they'd just pushed a little harder they could have supported 1337 MHz RAM. I don't know what geek wouldn't have jumped at that.

    --
    Author of Enyo: Up and Running from O'Reilly Media
  22. The Evolution of the Processor Wars by jdb2 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    First came the MHz Wars, then came the Core Wars, now come the On-Board Memory Controller Wars.

    When Intel "innovated" and gave Nehalem on-board DDR3 memory controllers, they did something else as well : they made a "mine is bigger than yours" move by adding 1 more memory controller and thereby giving AMD's Shanghai the one-up. Well, AMD apparently isn't taking that lightly as next year they'll be releasing an upgrade to Istanbul ( which will ship this year ) which uses Socket G34 as well as a 12-core Socket G34 "chip" -- codenamed Magny-Cours -- which will basically be an MCM of 2 Istanbuls/Sao-Paolos. Socket G34 will purportedly support processors with 4 independent DDR3 memory controllers -- AMD's "mine is bigger than yours" riposte to Intel.

    Business as usual it seems.

    jdb2

    1. Re:The Evolution of the Processor Wars by dubbreak · · Score: 3, Funny

      .. next year they'll be releasing an upgrade to Istanbul..

      Not Constantinople?

      --
      "If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
  23. No such thing as too "Much RAM" by Fujisawa+Sensei · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But, will they sell me an application that can use that much RAM? I'm fresh out.

    No point having that much gas if I've no car to put it in...

    Some of was want more RAM than we will ever use. If I'm using all the available RAM on my system, then I don't have enough.

    --
    If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
  24. Much cheaper to go with DDR2 by this+great+guy · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...the cost of RAM eclipse the cost of the rest of your PC by 20-fold or more

    And that, my friends, is why you shouldn't buy Intel processors supporting DDR3 only (Core i7 or Nehalem-based Xeon). For large memory config, DDR2 is cheaper and motherboards with lots of slots are more common (try to find one with 32+ DDR3 slots: it does not exist !). Check this out: a config supporting 128GB at about 1/6th the cost of the one referenced in TFA ($50k):

    • PSU Corsair 1000HX 1000 Watt: $218
    • Mobo Tyan S4989WG2NR: $872
    • 4 x CPU Opteron 8350 HE Quad-core 2.0 GHz: 4 x $917
    • 32 x 4GB DDR2-667 ECC Registered: 32 x $84
    • Case + HDD + GPU: say about $300 for a simple tower case
    • Total: $7746
  25. With this much RAM by nscott89 · · Score: 2, Funny

    With this much RAM, the only reason to have a HDD is for incremental backup, just in case my computer freezes... Oh wait, I'm running Windo[BSOD]

  26. WTF would you do with 192GB of RAM on a desktop? by merreborn · · Score: 2, Informative

    WTF would you do with 192GB of RAM on a desktop? Easy:

    RAMDisk, and VMs.

    A nice big ramdisk will put most consumer-grade SSDs to shame, performance-wise.

    A future in which every desktop has this kind of RAM available is a bright one indeed -- you'll never see a "Loading" screen again. The only time you'd be stuck waiting on permanent storage would be during boot, and while committing writes to disk. For many common desktop applications (web browsing, gaming) there's little need to commit much to permanent storage at all.

    And hell, it's even easier to use this kind of memory on the server side. Memcached all the way. The kids over at facebook, with their multi-terrabyte memcached installation spread over hundreds (thousands?) of boxes would probably KILL for systems based on these motherboards -- a single 192GB box would be much cheaper to build and maintain than 6 32GB boxes. They could reduce the number of racks in their datacenters dramatically.

    The biggest question would be whether or not a single box based could provide adequate IO bandwidth to get at all that data.

  27. Ask and ye shall find.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    http://www.topcelebs.com/archive/Marina-Sirtis.htm

    (posting as AC with bag over head.)

  28. Re:Blinkenlights by Lost+Engineer · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Yeah and then the cops kick in your door looking for your grow op.

  29. Re:1st PC by Glonoinha · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yea, you kids and your fancy limitless random access memory and direct access storage devices.

    When I was a kid my first PC had 5000 bytes of RAM, of which only 3500 were available for user applications (the remaining 1500 bytes reserved for the OS.) The screen showed 22 characters across and 23 characters down, each character as big as your thumb. It used 16 different colors, all 16 of which were ugly. If we wanted graphics we had to sacrifice a few characters from the alphabet and remap the 8x8 pixel character map into whatever graphic we wanted. And finally, after only having it a few months we got a tape drive to save our programs (so we didn't have to type them in each time we shut off the computer.) It took 15 minutes to load a single program from tape.
    And we were THANKFUL!

    And no marking this funny. It would be hilarious, if it weren't true. But I'm serious as a heart attack. Made a helicopter game on that machine once, cost me half my alphabet!

    --
    Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer