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As you know I bought a Mac Pro and Jared and I already agreed that the memory upgrades for the Mac Pro are way too much. It turns out that $300 for a gig of FB ram is not that much more then the market rate.

Comments to “FB DIMM RAM is expensive”

JaredB says:

August 15, 2006 at 10:47 pm

Still seems pretty pricey to me. What are the realistic performance gains for FB ram? It seems like they would have to be pretty substantial to make it worthwhile. As you can tell, I don’t know much about FB ram; just curious to see where the requirement for using it came from and too lazy to find out for myself.

JaredB says:

August 15, 2006 at 10:47 pm

JaredB says:

August 15, 2006 at 10:47 pm

Dan says:

August 16, 2006 at 7:42 am

Found this:

FB-DIMM’s have a controller on the memory stick that acts as a buffer (hence the name) between the system controller and the memory. The reason is that in the past, the memory controller wrote directly to the memory and had a pin on the memory stick to access each section of RAM. Using a FB-DIMM, you can keep the same pin-out on the DIMM (it’s a serial interface between the system memory controller and the buffer) and still increase the RAM size. ECC is usually incorporated into FB-DIMM’s because the memory buffer can implement this feature.

One note, though: FB-DIMMS, unlike other types, actually need the heatsink, even if you’re not overclocking or whatever–the processor on the stick that makes it “FB” generates some heat. On the positive side, FB-DIMMS are supposed to significantly increase reliability and overall throughput for large amounts of RAM in a system, so it’s a good direction to be heading, and one assumes all systems will be using it eventually, even if it’s mostly a server/workstation thing right now.

Here’s an Ars article that I might read.

It looks like a good progression to me. Even though as early adopters we have to suffer with the prices our systems won’t be out of date as fast like trying to buy PC-133 RAM for a system now, which is not too hard but the RAM is now more expensive then DDR (how’d that ever happen).

Dan says:

August 16, 2006 at 7:42 am

Found this:

FB-DIMM’s have a controller on the memory stick that acts as a buffer (hence the name) between the system controller and the memory. The reason is that in the past, the memory controller wrote directly to the memory and had a pin on the memory stick to access each section of RAM. Using a FB-DIMM, you can keep the same pin-out on the DIMM (it’s a serial interface between the system memory controller and the buffer) and still increase the RAM size. ECC is usually incorporated into FB-DIMM’s because the memory buffer can implement this feature.

One note, though: FB-DIMMS, unlike other types, actually need the heatsink, even if you’re not overclocking or whatever–the processor on the stick that makes it “FB” generates some heat. On the positive side, FB-DIMMS are supposed to significantly increase reliability and overall throughput for large amounts of RAM in a system, so it’s a good direction to be heading, and one assumes all systems will be using it eventually, even if it’s mostly a server/workstation thing right now.

Here’s an Ars article that I might read.

Dan says:

August 16, 2006 at 7:42 am

Found this:

FB-DIMM’s have a controller on the memory stick that acts as a buffer (hence the name) between the system controller and the memory. The reason is that in the past, the memory controller wrote directly to the memory and had a pin on the memory stick to access each section of RAM. Using a FB-DIMM, you can keep the same pin-out on the DIMM (it’s a serial interface between the system memory controller and the buffer) and still increase the RAM size. ECC is usually incorporated into FB-DIMM’s because the memory buffer can implement this feature.

One note, though: FB-DIMMS, unlike other types, actually need the heatsink, even if you’re not overclocking or whatever–the processor on the stick that makes it “FB” generates some heat. On the positive side, FB-DIMMS are supposed to significantly increase reliability and overall throughput for large amounts of RAM in a system, so it’s a good direction to be heading, and one assumes all systems will be using it eventually, even if it’s mostly a server/workstation thing right now.

Here’s an Ars article that I might read.

JaredB says:

August 16, 2006 at 10:01 am

I figured that it was something like that; moving to the next generation, etc. I still wonder whether it is worth it today, though, in terms of real-world performance improvements. If it means getting 4GB for ~$400 instead of $1100, I would be willing to live without the new RAM, I would think.

In terms of being out of date quickly, I don’t think I really buy into that whole philosophy. I guess with Apple, it’s a different case since they don’t come out with new system components as often, but usually for PCs the memory that a given processor/MB supports will be around and available for as long (or longer) than the processor, so if one is out of date the other probably is as well. But then again, I don’t have a problem with old computers either - as long as it does what you need it to do it isn’t obsolete, so it’s only a challenge when you try to go back later (as you’ve said) and buy upgrades for a system that isn’t as widely supported anymore.

JaredB says:

August 16, 2006 at 10:01 am

JaredB says:

August 16, 2006 at 10:01 am

Dan says:

August 16, 2006 at 11:15 am

Yeah, upgrading old computers is the worst. My old Big-Yellow was kick ass at the time but I didn’t pay for the addition PCI-X slot and after a year I couldn’t upgrade my video card because ATI and NVIDIA stopped updating the new cards to work for AGP. I had the same problem with ram when I work on friends old computers, they needed more ram and I found PC-1** was much more expensive then the current DDR.

And that’s how I take this, I’m probably not going to go higher then what currently comes with the system, it’s just too much. But in the future I will upgrade it wont be as bad or it may be even cheaper then DDR at some point in time.

Then there’s always the speculation that FB ram might go the way of Rambus.

Dan says:

August 16, 2006 at 11:15 am

Then there’s always the speculation that FB ram might go the way of Rambus.

Dan says:

August 16, 2006 at 11:15 am

Then there’s always the speculation that FB ram might go the way of Rambus.

Dan says:

August 16, 2006 at 10:15 pm

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