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How DRAM changed the world

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41–50 of 128 posts

Re: How DRAM changed the world

#41
post #23
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah the biggest jump in performance by far was SSDs. It was a huge step so software had no chance to "catch up" initially.

It's happening, Windows gets slower every year to adapt to SSDs.

tinfoil hat on.

I think Microsoft is making windows slow to prepare people for when they move everything on your computer to their cloud.

tinfoil hat off.

Re: How DRAM changed the world

#42

"8K video recording" - does anyone really need this? Seems like for negligible gain in quality people are pushed to sacrifice their storage & battery, and so upgrade their hardware sooner...

You are thinking from a consumer point of view, consumer as in Jane taking videos of her cats which 8K, even 4K would be overkill. You can set your recording device to record in 720p or 1080p and so on to suit the purpose.

For commercial purposes it's another story and it makes sense to consider shooting in 8K if possible, thus the option should exist.

Re: How DRAM changed the world

#43
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

Going from an inflatable pool in your backyard to a community pool is world changing. Going from the Pacific Ocean to the Seven Seas is still lots of water.

Lots of water that you don't really need, so hardly makes a difference...

Re: How DRAM changed the world

#44
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's the case, why haven't we switched to SRAM? Isn't it only about 4x the price at any given process node?

That 4x the price does also explain why it has not happened.

Yeah but why don't we have like 500MB of SRAM per 8GB of RAM. Certain addresses could be faster, in the same way /dev/shm/ is faster.

Re: How DRAM changed the world

#45
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

8GB -> 32GB doesn't really give you a whole lot more than opening more browser tabs or whatnot. Cache some more filesystem into memory I suppose. 8MB -> 32MB enabled entirely new categories of (consumer-level) software. It would be a game changer for performance as you were no longer swapping to (exceedingly slow) disk. They simply are not comparable, imo. 8MB to 32MB was night and day difference and you would drool…

Disk speed is definitely a key factor. Solid state is dramatically lower latency than HDDs were, while DRAM latency in absolute terms has been pretty constant for a long time. So even if you're doing something very demanding that works with large amounts of data relative to standard quantities of RAM (a situation that gets harder to come by,) having it all in RAM at the same time is much less important than back in the 90s/00s.

Re: How DRAM changed the world

#46
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am confused by this comment. You said "RAM" (contrast to "DRAM" in the article title) but I think you are talking about DRAM sticks? But those have not gone away (other than with some laptops where it's soldered on and not upgradable). Going from 8MB to 32MB in the 90s is still comparable to going from 8GB to 32GB today. One difference is just that the price isn't dropping at the same rate anymore [1], so it doesn'…

> Going from 8MB to 32MB in the 90s is still comparable to going from 8GB to 32GB today. This statement makes it difficult to believe you were there.

Of course, the really significant step back then was being able to go from 640 kB (+/-) to more than 1 MB (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventional_memory).

Re: How DRAM changed the world

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 4x the price does also explain why it has not happened.

Yeah but why don't we have like 500MB of SRAM per 8GB of RAM. Certain addresses could be faster, in the same way /dev/shm/ is faster.

This is sort of the role that L3 cache plays already. Your proposal would be effectively an upgradable L4 cache. No idea if the economics on that are worth it vs bigger DRAM so you have less pressure on the nvme disk.

Re: How DRAM changed the world

#48
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am confused by this comment. You said "RAM" (contrast to "DRAM" in the article title) but I think you are talking about DRAM sticks? But those have not gone away (other than with some laptops where it's soldered on and not upgradable). Going from 8MB to 32MB in the 90s is still comparable to going from 8GB to 32GB today. One difference is just that the price isn't dropping at the same rate anymore [1], so it doesn'…

Most RAM found in consumer PC's during the 90s was still DRAM, including SDRAM, EDO, and Rambus. I believe OP is just being nostalgic over the period of time when RAM upgrades were very a exciting thing, as hardware was changing very quickly in that era and each year felt considerably more capable than the prior.

In fact, I'd venture as far as to say that all memory in personal and/or "home" computers, starting with the earliest generation (Apple I & Co), has always been some variation of DRAM - with the possible exception of the external cache memory chips used by some CPUs (e.g. 486, Pentium IIRC).

Re: How DRAM changed the world

#49

The article doesn't properly explain how DRAM is different from SRAM. DRAM has to constantly refresh itself in order not to 'forget' its contents.

Yes, it totally misses the crucial and non obvious trade off which unlocked the benefits. The rest of the system has to take care of periodically rewriting every memory cell so that the charge doesn't dissipate.

In fact it took a bit of time for the CPUs or memory controllers to do it automatically, i.e. without the programmer having to explicitly code the refresh.

Re: How DRAM changed the world

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but why don't we have like 500MB of SRAM per 8GB of RAM. Certain addresses could be faster, in the same way /dev/shm/ is faster.

This is sort of the role that L3 cache plays already. Your proposal would be effectively an upgradable L4 cache. No idea if the economics on that are worth it vs bigger DRAM so you have less pressure on the nvme disk.

Cache is not general purpose as far as I know. I want to be able to do whatever I want with it.
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