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RAM kits are now sold with one fake RAM stick alongside a real one

tomshardware.com

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Re: RAM kits are now sold with one fake RAM stick alongside a real one

#171

Post by johnwalkr »

jkestner wrote: post #164
mort96 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have absolutely no interest in RGB anything in my computer. Yet I've occasionally ended up with all these RGB parts -- RGB LED on my mouse, RGB RAM sticks, RGB GPU -- just because it's the best alternative right then and there, it's wild. It's at the point where you sometimes have to go with a worse price/performance option or otherwise suboptimal choice just to avoid the stupid useless little RGB LEDs.

Yeah, if people were still doing LAN parties, I’d want to bring the equivalent of a sleeper car. Maybe empty out that beige AT case with the turbo button on it.

That, and using old G4 or G5 Mac cases are very common projects.

Re: RAM kits are now sold with one fake RAM stick alongside a real one

#172

Post by phendrenad2 »

debo_ wrote: post #12

We should call the fake stick "NAM" for "no access memory." Then you can tell your kids that they couldn't possibly understand, man, because they weren't _there_.

Or DMZBR, for "dedicated mass zero buffer ram". 4, 8, or 16 gigabyte sticks of the finest zeroes on Earth! Now you don't have to reuse the same zeroes over and over! Reduces wear and tear on your zeroes!

Re: RAM kits are now sold with one fake RAM stick alongside a real one

#173

Post by exabrial »

elnerd wrote: post #159
exabrial wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Up to a certain point and It’s actually very dependent on the CPU. Take Epyc processors. On certain ones, after certain RAM amount, populating all the slots causes the cpu to kick the RAM speed to a lower tier. You’re then limited to capacities of two sticks. Weird, but it has to do with power requirements. Abutting above the threshold had to be buffered, which increases latency.

I have a fully populated server with 2x7K62 and 16x64GB (3200 mhz) for my home lab. Do you know how to check if I am affected by this?

Easiest way would be to put two dimms in one channel, check your mem spped, put 1 dimm in 2 channels, check mem speed, then repopulate as you had, check mem speed.

Sometimes having more, but slower ram, is still better than having less, but faster ram.

As always, measuring your real world use cases is the ultimate test.

Re: RAM kits are now sold with one fake RAM stick alongside a real one

#174

Post by rjh29 »

hackerfoo wrote: post #157
skibz wrote: post #53

I miss the days when most people had a vanilla looking computer. You wouldn't have felt out of place at the LAN party lugging in your dad's old Packard Bell tower that you used for your gaming rig. We still appreciated visually stunning PCs. Not just for the works of art that they were, but also for the DIY skill and ethic you were actually required to demonstrate to build and mod them. Nowadays, it's all just "RGB b…

You people are just old and cranky. I’ve loved LEDs ever since I first saw a red one light up in the 80s (we didn’t have blue ones then.)

I love them too and I'm happy they come built-in by default (plus the fantastic OpenRGB project to sync them all) instead of having to make them myself... I remember when I was paying £100+ for a membrane keyboard because it was one of the first to have RGB. Now they all do.

Re: RAM kits are now sold with one fake RAM stick alongside a real one

#175

Post by rjh29 »

scotty79 wrote: post #80
embedding-shape wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead, value that different humans value different things, life would be utterly boring if everyone was the same, wouldn't it?

I jest of course, but I do seem to have min-maxing tendencies.

Modders min-max for aesthetics!

Re: RAM kits are now sold with one fake RAM stick alongside a real one

#176

Post by rjh29 »

saltcured wrote: post #127
skibz wrote: post #53

I miss the days when most people had a vanilla looking computer. You wouldn't have felt out of place at the LAN party lugging in your dad's old Packard Bell tower that you used for your gaming rig. We still appreciated visually stunning PCs. Not just for the works of art that they were, but also for the DIY skill and ethic you were actually required to demonstrate to build and mod them. Nowadays, it's all just "RGB b…

Will there be another retro phase, with the vanguard using beige cases that scream, "this color expects to capture a nicotine patina"?

Yes, RGB is so common now that it's not popular, and retro stuff is coming back in. I think I saw even some landscape PC cases (laid flat) with fake HDD drive slots and a turbo button.

Re: RAM kits are now sold with one fake RAM stick alongside a real one

#178

Post by hakfoo »

saltcured wrote: post #127
skibz wrote: post #53

I miss the days when most people had a vanilla looking computer. You wouldn't have felt out of place at the LAN party lugging in your dad's old Packard Bell tower that you used for your gaming rig. We still appreciated visually stunning PCs. Not just for the works of art that they were, but also for the DIY skill and ethic you were actually required to demonstrate to build and mod them. Nowadays, it's all just "RGB b…

Will there be another retro phase, with the vanguard using beige cases that scream, "this color expects to capture a nicotine patina"?

You can still get a handful of non-RGB cases. They're usually sold as the "Silent" version (i. e. Fractal Pop series, Gamemax Titan Silent series) since the non-glass side panels often have sound-deadening material glued in.

15 bucks of rattlecans will make any case beige. :)

I'm sort of waiting for a motherboard manufacturer to weigh in though. Even the "pro" ranges tend to be black PCBs with a lot of complex silkscreening. The boards that don't have any of that tend to be OEM-tier boards with skimpy features. Surely someone can make an X870E-VINTAGE board with a green or yellow-brown substrate, no nonsense silkscreening, and finned brass heatsinkage that looks like the sort of thing you saw permanently glued to your 486DX2/66 CPU?

I want the aesthetic, but that can still be implemented in the context of no-compromises modern hardware.

Re: RAM kits are now sold with one fake RAM stick alongside a real one

#179

Post by nubinetwork »

ajnin wrote: post #153

This article is using "fake" for click-bait purposes, implying some kind of scam, in fact it's just a filler RGB stick to make pretty lights inside your case, nothing nefarious about it and it's clear when you buy, but probably wouldn't be featured on HN without it.

Dummy sticks have existed since rambus as well.

Re: RAM kits are now sold with one fake RAM stick alongside a real one

#180

Post by agreezy »

butz wrote: post #87

How about we use all that AI and start doing some serious optimizations to existing software? Reduce memory requirements by half, or even more.

It's sloppy developers. People used to be able to make software to run on limited ram natively. Now everything is wrapped in something.
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