MetaRAM now pumping 288GB of memory into Intel boxes

Super-charging memory shop MetaRAM has started talking up its beefy DDR3 modules. MetaRAM's top customer Hynix has already taken delivery of the DDR3 MetaSDRAM, which allows server customers to pack far more memory inside their standard systems. For example, Hynix is hyping "the world's first" 16GB 2-rank DIMMs, which it …

[E]

Where / how to buy?!?

MetaRAM is very neat. I have people who could actually use 128+ GB to run simulations. We have some boxes with a lot of memory slots. I'd like to use MetaRAM RAM.

But... who is actually selling the things? Where can I go to buy some?

[Colin Wilson]

Windows 7 ?

I suppose they've got to start creating suitable hardware for it sometime :-p

[soaklord]

Wow!!!

With that kind of RAM, I could probably get Vista to run at... XP speeds!!! Hmm... with 288GB of RAM, you could run entire app installs purely from memory... with no disk reads whatsoever.

[robert]

cost

must be very expensive,

[Anonymous Coward]

288GB of RAM...

That's almost enough to run Vista! Muhaha

[Eric]

288GB ought to be enough for anybody.

n/t

[Robert Hulme]

Only 288GB?

That's really not all that much. Sun already sell a box that supports 256GB of RAM (X4600 M2).

They could at least have loaded one of those puppies up if they wanted to brag about how much memory they could get in one system (1024GB?).

288GB? Pfft.

[Martin Lyne]

Re: "Runnng Vista"

I hope you plan on it being 64-bit, otherwise you're going to have a small* amount of wasted capacity..

* Fuckloads

As an aside though.. my Vista Ultimate runs just dandy on 2Gb, 8800GT, Q6600. No game settings can slow it down (Same can't be said for some java apps though)

What slows Vista down is.. all the goddamn pops, 2 for making a new folder. I'M A GODDAMN ADMIN!

[Anonymous Coward]

288GB? (again)

The way things are going with the graphics card business, 288gb will probably be the standard complement in a couple of generations...

[David Halko]

SUN was shipping x64 Boxes with 256Gig RAM for years...

I am not sure why this is any big deal - companies just need to know how to engineer a computer.

SUN has been shipping AMD boxes for years with 256Gig of RAM... with a 64 bit OS that could run 32 & 64 bit applications, to boot!

http://www.sun.com/servers/x64/x4600/specs.xml

(That SUN AMD box was used to make one of the fastest super computing clusters in the world.)

[Anonymous Coward]

thats a lot of amiga Recoverable ram disks

thats a lot of amiga 900KB Recoverable Ram Disks,

does that mean you can finally make windows warm boot to a RAD disk intall now, Ohh thats right they still cant retain their RAM disks content after a warm reset, so thats a NO then....

[Will Godfrey]

Want

Absolutely no need for it. Just want.

[BRAINPLAN]

RE: SUN

"8 DIMM slots per CPU socket, choice of 2 GB and 4 GB DDR2/667 ECC registered DIMMs for dual-core and quad-core processors. Quad core processors support 667MB/s data transfer for all 8 DIMMs per processor. (2.4GHz and 3.2GHz dual-core processors are supported with 4 DIMM slots per processor) "

Thats 32gb p/processor to me - across 8 processors. Indeed, SUN provide nothing new.

- Paris, because even she can do the math.

[Sampler]

@ Martin Lyne

As you have ultimate, goto group policy editor and set the pop-ups to auto-elevate, then you can use Vista with the security of UAC without the annoyance :D

Step 1. Click the Start button and launch the Local Security Policy editor by entering secpol.msc in the Search box.

Step 2. Select the Local Policies item in the left panel to expand the tree, then expand Security Options under Local Policies.

Step 3. Scroll down the list in the right panel to locate User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode. Right-click that item and choose Properties.

Step 4. Select Elevate without prompting and close the dialog.

[Tris Orendorff]

@Martin Lyne, @Sampler

You forgot one:

Step 5. Let all Malware run silently with admin privs from now on.

Microsoft would have done better by imitating BSD for their security model. Their NIH is coming back to bite them.

[Anonymous Coward]

to buy

http://www.colfax-intl.com/jlrid/SpotLight_more_Acc.asp?L=120&S=42&B=1353

[Max]

Cost

Accordng to informationweek back in January: "...a four-processor server, with 16 cores and 250 GB of memory, using MetaRAM technology could start at about $50,000, roughly 90% less than a system using only DRAM."

However, that was approximately the announced price of their DDR2, not this new DDR3. I suspect we wont get a price on that until it is market-ready.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206900369

[Francis Vaughan]

Puny

SGI sell a system that will take 128TB in a single system image. They get about 1.8TB per rack (if it only holds memory), so it would not exactly be a small system if you do want it this capacious. The one at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is 20TB.

Clearly big specialised iron isn't the target, or indeed the competition.

What would be interesting to know about these ultra dense memory devices is the power and heat implications. One suspects that they may well not be a simple slot in replacement for many machines.

[Anonymous Coward]

again with the catch up

UNIX trumps Windows shite again - bored now

[Ian Michael Gumby]

I think some have missed the point...

Sun Kit has a lot of memory slots.

Most "server" motherboards have a lot of memory slots.

But the idea is that you can take a "pc" motherboard which has a couple of slots and pack in more memory.

Its very interesting. Especially if one wanted to take an office full of PCs, that double as desktops and then as part of a "cloud" (background processing).

Or am I missing something?

[William]

@Ian Michael Gumby

Oh, the understand completely. But nothing, let alone context, can stand in the way of their e-penis.

[Zmodem]

MetaRAM

meh. all megatextures all round

[David Halko]

Ian - I think some have missed the point...

I don't think anyone has missed the point.

PC Vendors have been making machines which has the new capacity for years now. We are not talking about high-end mid-range systems, but regular old SUN PC platforms had this capacity for awhile.

Many of the other vendors got out of the 8 socket PC market (i.e. HP, Dell, IBM, NCR, etc.) when proprietary CPU vendors started announcing dual-core... and SUN entered into that market to take up the slack for the lack of desire to retain the engineering capability during the post-year-2000 financial challenge years.

Making memory chips a little bigger does not mean vendors should exit the market of trying to avoid I/O bottlenecks for applications.

For some vendors, like SUN, it means providing a PC with 512 Gig or 1 Terabyte of RAM while other vendors are providing 288 Gig.

[Anonymous Coward]

Doubling Memory

Dataram already offer products which allow the doubling of maximum memory capacity on certain SUN, IBM & HP Servers and workstations and have done for years !

[Rob]

@AC Amigan

You don't need recoverable ram disks for fast reboots... just go "Hibernate" *

*288GB free disk space required