PC World executive editor Gordon Mah Ung recently announced that his team successfully “smashed right through” the traditional 64GB system RAM barrier.
“[The] barrier has vexed consumer computing for years now. Mainstream desktop PCs have all featured four slots for a maximum of 32GB of DDR3 RAM,” he explained.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhrS-nApIw4]
“At the high-end, prosumer PCs doubled that to eight slots for a maximum of 64GB DDR3. With the move last year to DDR4 RAM in Intel’s Haswell-E, we were promised we’d finally break the 64GB mark. That time has come.”
To break the barrier, the PC World crew selected Corsair’s 128GB kit which is available in three speeds: DDR4/2800, DDR4/2666 and DDR4/2400 at the Platinum level.
“The kit we used was the DDR4/2400 and is comprised of eight 16GB modules. It comes in a matched set with two heatsink fans,” Ung continued. “The fastest DDR4/2800 set is $2,120, while the two lower-speed kits are $1,980. In true computer tradition though, prices have already begun to fall. Corsair has since released its Vengeance LPX line at the same density and speed for $1,600.”
As Ung notes, not everyone can easily get to 128GB of RAM at this point in time, with such capacity requiring 8 memory slots, as well as a CPU and motherboard with BIOS support for such a massive amount of memory.
“128GB of system RAM [may] seem silly, but if you dial back the clock, people used to say that about 16MB of RAM and 1GB of RAM. One day, I can say with confidence, we’ll look back and laugh how silly we were to be in awe of 128GB of RAM—when we’re all running 1TB and counting,” Ung added.
Commenting on the above-mentioned report, Frank Ferro, senior director of product marketing at Rambus, confirmed that DDR4 was well on its way to ramping on the server and enthusiast side, while remaining on track to ultimately hit mainstream desktop PCs, laptops and consumer applications such as digital TVs and set-top boxes.
“We expect the cost of DDR4 to decrease. When it reaches price parity with DDR3, DDR4 will become the default choice for consumer products.”
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