FB-DIMM is dead, RDDR3 is new king
FB-DIMM development stops, Registered ECC DDR3 is the way forward
EVEN THOUGH SKULLTRAIL is yet to surface, FB-DIMM development has drawn to a close. We have talked to several Dramurai and developers of server memories, and they had told us that FB-DIMM is as dead as a turkey preparing for Thanksgiving Dinner.
Chipzilla is a proud pusher of this standard, so it is significant that the place where we talked about the future (or the lack of it) for the FB-DIMM was the Moscone West convention centre, which hosted Intel Developer's Forum Fall 007.
At the end of the day, forcing the FB-DIMM standard did not pay off in terms of TDP (Thermal Power Design). FB-DIMM DDR2-667 as such - and even 2009 part, FB-DIMM DDR3-1333 - just did not gave enough leverage to make it worth while, it seems.
We talked with several server vendors and asked what was needed to get the power consumed by the FB-DIMMS off the table. The TDP trade-off would only pay with FB-DIMM modules sporting GDDR3 or GDDR4 chips with physical clocks of 1-1.2GHz, meaning a single DIMM would have 19.2 GB/s of bandwidth to work with. With the upcoming Stoakley chipset, we would be talking about an FB-DIMM system sporting a bandwidth of 28.4 to 56.8 GB/s. Sadly for FB-DIMMs, that did not happen - and this standard will slowly go the path of Rambus with RDIMM memory.
Samsung demonstrated development of DDR3 chips with ECC function on
Registered DIMMs.
So we got ton of power being consumed with no real benefits, and FB-DIMMs are sadly destined to remain present in current setups and a niche market called Nehalem 4S, while mainstream and high-performing servers of next year will get what memory makers will bring Registered DIMM with ECC chips at 800- and 1333MHz in DDR3 flavour. Development of RDDR3 chips is in full progress, set to debut with next-year's chipsets, most notably Nehalem in single and dual-socket configurations.
Samsung's 2GB RDDR3-800 memory module features a heat-spreader similar
to one used in enthusiast space
Memory module manufacturers will continue to bring out FB-DIMM modules, such as Kingston's brilliant FB-DIMM DDR2-800 CAS3, but it will not get much more than one-off for Skulltrail.
Memory chip manufacturers and module manufacturers will dig into development of RDIMM DDR3 modules, though. Nehalem in 1S and 2S configurations will be a big hit, and we wonder what will be the clock of DDR3 memory with ECC feature when Nehalem launches. Perhaps even 1600 or 2000MHz, but for servers and workstations, stability is a must. µ
Comments
Damn Intel changing Memory!
I knew this was coming, it was predictable after the death of Rambus memory on the Pentium 4 platform. Any memory standard which is only pushed by Intel and not AMD is not in a secure position.It is frustrating that Intel does not make a dual-socket standard DDR2 or DDR3 chipset. The 5000 chipset supports only expensive FB-DIMMs.
The Intel 3000 chipset motherboards is a cheaper option to avoid FB-DIMMs, when you only need one cpu socket. Don't even get me started on Socket 771 vs socket 775 price disparity.
And So We Got Screwed
Yeah, I knew this was coming. Too bad for my company too. We have oodles of 1 and 2GB sticks of this stuff that in a year or so will be completely useless to us. My hope is that we can get rid of it all before then.XDR SDRAM2
Last night I was searching info about XDR and I found this link if someone could translate it would be very nice.http://www.stor-age.com/zhuanti/htm2005/05080800ZC5D.asp
I hope AMD do something with the Opteron (Bulldozer), The Zram licence & the Rambus one too.
Good news for Barcelona
This is excellent news for AMD. No need to worry about availability of RDDR3 because memory manufacturers are concentrating on FB-DIMMS with just non-registered memory.RDDR3 vs. XDR
Does not this make a case for XDR.did you notice the Toshiba announcement
with new spurs chip with XDR for notebooks?Oct 2 demo
Common Theo XDR is next look at Rambus. Its a who's who of former Intel employees. Just tell me they do not have connections...
RE: And so we got screwed
We only just upgraded our server 8 months ago to new HP's with FB-DIMMs 4Gb's in all 3 servers at a cost of $700au a Gb, kinda makes me feel sad but i just hope we can get replacements under warranty in a few years time if required. And i really hope SAS Drives dont get fased out as fast as FB-DIMMs have.How about Intel?
So does this mean Intel is abandoning FB-DIMM as well? or why would you consider FB-DIMM dead??And is Intel the only provider that supports FB-DIMM?
This planned obsolescence is insane
I'm already having a hard time trying to find DDR -200 memory, not to mention 1GB sticks of PC100 SDRAM!This is insane. Like car manufacturers are required to keep producing (or stocking) spare parts for a number of years, motherboard manufacturers should be required by law to keep inventories of memory for all the mobos produced in the last 10 years, and sell those at the same price when they purchased it!.
See <A HREF="http://digg.com/hardware/The_most_expensive_memory_card_ever">here</A>.
To Willy
@Willy:Why would you look for DDR200 memory? You can just buy DDR266, 333 or 400 and it'll work in a motherboard that supports DDR200. Same with PC100: you can just use PC133 memory. The only things the motherboard cares about are the number of banks (or "ranks" as some people now call them) on each module. And whether it's registered or unbuffered.
10 years?! And inevitable change.
Who keeps their computer for 10 years? A lot of people don't even keep a car much longer than that. And a 10-year-old car still runs on new roads, while a 10-year-old computer would be hard-pressed to run new software effectively. (Let's remember that '97 was the year of MMX... ah, those were the days...)On another note, the problem is that too many manufacturers jump on the Intel bandwagon, regardless if it makes sense. I never understood the point of FB-DIMMs, and the dramatic increase in price with little increase in performance. It ends up being kind of a toss-up though. For example, the new x38 chipset is designed to run PCIe 2.0 devices, which aren't prevalent, and DDR3, which hasn't dropped in price (yet). In that case, not enough manufacturers are moving to new technology. I don't know.
Intel will do what Intel wants, and people need to realize that there are other hardware manufacturers out there (Apple, AMD, IBM, etc.) that offer other options. Once people stop gobbling up every crazy idea Intel sells, maybe they'll tone it down.
People are all stupid
It's funny how clueless people are. No clue that Pc133 is backward compatable. Please research before whining about not being able to find old stuff. Tons of old stuff is everywhere especially ebay.