Gigabyte iram released

[elec999]

I saw that gigabyte Iram released. Just curious where can it be purchased.
Thanks

[thegreek]

here is one place I found: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=16611&vpn=GC-RAMDISK&manufacture=Gigabyte

[mortimer]

Pre-order only. Looks like a solution looking for a problem to solve.

[elec999]

The price is way off then what it was promise. Far to expensive, the drive around $200 plus 4x150 for 1gig ddram, 600+200 about <800 for the drive with 4gig so off from what it was promised.
Thanks

[Sjaak]

The price is way off then what it was promise. Far to expensive, the drive around $200 plus 4x150 for 1gig ddram, 600+200 about <800 for the drive with 4gig so off from what it was promised.
Thanks

Well if it makes true what we heard (boot times of <5secs) i think there may be a market.

[fuzzba11]

I've got a review in front of me by the Australian mag Atomic (http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/), they benchmarked the iRAM using 4gigs against a 36gig Raptor. Then they RAIDed two iRAMs and tested them.

"WARNING: These benchmark results may induce an unintended pants-tenting."

HDTach;
Random Access Time:
Raptor 8.9 ms
iRAM 0.0 ms

Read Speed
Raptor 49.7 MB/s
iRAM 126.1 MB/s

Burst Speed
Raptor 106.7 MB/s
iRAM 140.3 MB/s

SiSoft Sandra 2005 (sequential read)
Raptor 50 MB/s
iRAM 137 MB/s
iRAM RAID 270 MB/s

ATTO
Raptor read/write 55/50
iRAM read/write 141/116
iRAM RAID read/write 267/226

Booting into Windows with one iRAM for the first time was a record 4 second from BIOS to desktop. Once mobo/graphics drivers were installed that time doubled to 8 seconds. Other things the reviewers noticed was that SATA was a big bottleneck, SATA II should double the throughput to 300 MB/s, "but that's barely touching what the RAM drive is capable of pushing."

"The most realistic use could well be for web and database servers"

[Beginner]

would this increase framerates when gaming? sorry for the newb question.

[elec999]

I remember that anandtech said that the iram didnt make any difference at booting windows.
Thanks

[azu]

itd make a difference if data was shipped back and forth faster.

Wow those are some hot speeds :D if only i had the money >.>

[tom10167]

would this increase framerates when gaming? sorry for the newb question.

No.

I Other things the reviewers noticed was that SATA was a big bottleneck, SATA II should double the throughput to 300 MB/s, "but that's barely touching what the RAM drive is capable of pushing."


I'm sorry but then the whole thing is just a joke. There's no way I'd buy this knowing they're already developing a model that should cost the exact same amount, and be twice as fast. And even then, something is capable of many GB/s and they're running it at .3GB/s?

I wonder if there's a way they could set it up through a PCI-E, and instead of hooking it to a SATA port just letting it talk through that? I wouldn't even begin to know how you could do that.

Lack of support for 2GB sticks is also another bummer, you should be able to stick 8GB in there. I do like how you can mix/match RAM and it will still work.
All that aside, the idea here is pretty cool, and with further development you can count me in.
$230CAD($150ish USD?) is a steal.

[Sjaak]

would this increase framerates when gaming? sorry for the newb question.


No, but if done right it could send your loading times down the drain :D

[mtb856]

Well, if you had enough ram you could load the game into memory... but that probably wouldn't work for newer games (too big).

[tom10167]

I think you could do it if you had two of these in RAID0 though.(8GB) Right now my OS with UT2004, GTR and a bunch of apps installed is about 17GB, I'm sure with trimming and keeping it a dedicated gaming rig, you'd be ok.

As you can see though, using four 2GB sticks is a MUCH better idea.

I'm already pricing something like this out. :)

[tom10167]

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=83709 $80x4(Corsair ValueRAM is $87/stick for the 1GB) =$320
+ $190 = $510


At that price I'll wait until it's refined. Maybe I'll even upgrade my processor. :)

[Sjaak]

Put two in raid and install BF2 onto it :D

[shard]

Yeah and get 10 sec load times :D

[Kunaak]

you know whats funny about this item??

its obvious theres a market of people just itching for a faster quieter hard drive, with no moving parts, and if some company like seagate or western digital would just make a 4 gig one, and a 8 gig one, and sell them for $200 and $400 each...
I'd bet they sold just as fast as they can make them.

if people are already looking at the Iram, even with it's huge bandwidth limitations, and thinking of spending nearly $500+ just for a single 4 gig hard drive...
I am sure theres a market of people who would buy these.

if some company would just make a real one, even if it did use ram chips and was only 4 or 8 gigs, it hardly seems like that would stop some people.
to some people, the idea of speed is everything.

for me, these Irams aren't really worth the time, unless a few things happen....

put it on a PCI Express slot of 4X atleast, enable it to SATA2.

but then again, with the IRam 2 already in the works, seems gigabytes already looking towards the future on these, which is nice indeed.
would be a fun toy, but at it's current cost of over $500 for just getting a 4 gig set up, it's hard to really get excited about...

[azu]

price is always the offset isn't it :\

[Albigger]

The current version was already touted to support 2gb from some reviews a few months ago (though at the price of 2gb vs 1gb sticks I'd rather get two iRAMs and 8 1gb sticks instead of 4 2gb sticks).


Also I'm pretty sure there was another company (promise?) that made one of these a while ago that ran off the pci bus (not PCIe because it wasn't around then?) and the problem of running it off the bus is then you need drivers (its not a plug and play like with SATA) and then you'd probably need special drivers to install windows onto it.

Anyway would've been much more attractive if they hit the price that was touted around (I think I remember hearing $50-$80 or something)...


but anyway, I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said in the many other threads about this so I guess I'm out.

[thegreek]

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=83709 $80x4(Corsair ValueRAM is $87/stick for the 1GB) =$320
+ $190 = $510


At that price I'll wait until it's refined. Maybe I'll even upgrade my processor. :)

WOW, that's a whopping $127.50 per GB :eh?:

[apu318]

I think it would increase framerates in games depending on how good your system is. I know for a FACT that hard drive activity while you're in a game will severely impact your framerate. This is eleiminated with the iRam crap.

[Tyreal]

AFAIK Drive speeds do not effect framerates. For example, one player with a raptor and another player with a 7200 rpm hard drive will have just about the same fps assuming all other hardware is the same.

Drive speeds only effect loadtimes.

[tom10167]

WOW, that's a whopping $127.50 per GB :eh?:

Which is peanuts for an operating system drive really. I paid $87 for Corsair VS 512 sticks like two years ago, RAM is dirt cheap these days.

If this came in an 8 bank, 2GB capability PCIe no SATA interface, I'd be upgrading my whole system around this probably next week.

As far as the drivers go, if it was just PCIe and didn't hook up to a SATA wouldn't hitting F6 still work?

[elec999]

I bet this iram is really fast, the way it is. I didnt even try a raptor yet, so possibly a raptor would be good enoguh for some.
Heres the iram 2 specs.
"The i-RAM 2 will be using DDR2 memories instead of DDR1 and the data transfer interface is SATA 3Gb/s double of the current SATA 1.5 Gb/s. It will be externally housed with by means of an external case or fitted into the 5.25" bay with eSATA interfaces. The number of memory slots are expected to double to 8 and you can have up to 16GB max memory. The expected announcement of i-RAM 2 is targeted for February next year." http://www.vr-zone.com.sg/?i=3052
Thanks

[tom10167]

Horay everything I asked for! ...Well, except the most important one.

Still should be neat stuff though.

[thegreek]

I bet this iram is really fast, the way it is. I didnt even try a raptor yet, so possibly a raptor would be good enoguh for some.
Heres the iram 2 specs.
"The i-RAM 2 will be using DDR2 memories instead of DDR1 and the data transfer interface is SATA 3Gb/s double of the current SATA 1.5 Gb/s. It will be externally housed with by means of an external case or fitted into the 5.25" bay with eSATA interfaces. The number of memory slots are expected to double to 8 and you can have up to 16GB max memory. The expected announcement of i-RAM 2 is targeted for February next year." http://www.vr-zone.com.sg/?i=3052
Thanks

Those specs sound very nice.

[mdameron]

So... you'd get this 4gb 'drive', and install your OS on it? Then what about all your games/apps? Seems to me, everything but your OS would be lightning slow... T'would be sweet if it was cheaper per GB, and you could pack a whole lot more GB on it...

[mortimer]

Seems to be some shills in the room.

[tom10167]

So... you'd get this 4gb 'drive', and install your OS on it? Then what about all your games/apps? Seems to me, everything but your OS would be lightning slow... T'would be sweet if it was cheaper per GB, and you could pack a whole lot more GB on it...


2k is 2GB, and 1/4 of that is a 500MB page file. 4GB is cutting it pretty steep, but I think at 6GB you're fine, and 8GB is enough for most people, remember, data would be stored on a seperate drive.

8GB would handle a few games and apps.

[Romulox]

I wonder how long this product will last
I read an article about intel devolping something like this.
But the article also states that Microsoft and samsung are devloping
hard drives with 1gb flash memory in them which will probably be expanded.
http://news.com.com/Intel+cuts+PC+boot+time/2100-1041_3-5897993.html

[tom10167]

flash = teh slow

Solid state = teh win


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