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LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

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Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#131

Post by AnthonyMouse »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #46
orev wrote: post #14

I’m glad they explained why RAM has become soldered to the board recently. It’s easy to be cynical and assume they were doing it for profit motive purposes (which might be a nice side effect), but it’s good to know that there’s also a technical reason to solder it. Even better to know that it’s been recognized and a solution is being worked on.

The problem is getting manufacturers to implement the new RAM standard. While the justifications given are great for the consumer, I didn't see any reason for a manufacturer to sign on. They are going to lose money when people buy new RAM, rather than a whole new laptop. While processor speeds and size haven't plateaued yet, it's going to take a while to develop significant new speed upgrades and in the meantime, the…

> They are going to lose money when people buy new RAM, rather than a whole new laptop.

You're thinking about this the wrong way around.

Suppose the user has $800 to buy a new laptop. That's enough to get one with a faster processor than they have right now or more memory, but not both. If they buy one and it's not upgradable, that's not worth it. Wait another year, save up another $200, then buy the one that has both.

Whereas if it can be upgraded, you buy the new one with the faster CPU right away and upgrade the memory in a year. Manufacturer gets your money now instead of later, meanwhile the manufacturer who didn't offer this not only doesn't sell to you in a year, they just lost your business to the competition.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#132

Post by AnthonyMouse »

sliken wrote: post #15
baby_souffle wrote: post #4

This is fantastic news. Hopefully the cost to manufacturers is only marginal and they find a suitable replacement for their current "each tier in RAM comes with a 5-20% price bump" pricing scheme. Too bad apple is almost guaranteed to not adopt the standard. I miss being able to upgrade the ram in macbooks.

Apple ships 128 bit, 256 bit, and 512 bit wide memory interfaces on laptops (up to 1024 bit wide on desktops). Is it feasible to fit memory bandwidth like the M3 Max (512 bits wide LPDDR5-6400) with LPCAMM2 in a thin/light laptop?

Apple does this because their CPU and GPU use the same memory, and it's generally the GPU that benefits from more memory bandwidth. Whereas in a PC optimized for GPU work you'd have a discrete GPU that has its own memory which is even faster than that.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#133

Post by mschuster91 »

Rohansi wrote: post #82
wmf wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not really true; Apple's SSDs are no faster than off-the-shelf premium NVMe SSDs.

Yeah but some people need to justify their $1,800 USD purchase of laptop that comes with only 8 GB of RAM. Even though most laptops manufactured today would also come with NVMe (PCIe directly connected to the CPU, usually) flash storage, which is used by all operating systems as swap.

NVMe by no means is directly connected to the CPU directly, usually it's connected through at least one PCIe switch.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#134

Post by petemir »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #131
drivingmenuts wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is getting manufacturers to implement the new RAM standard. While the justifications given are great for the consumer, I didn't see any reason for a manufacturer to sign on. They are going to lose money when people buy new RAM, rather than a whole new laptop. While processor speeds and size haven't plateaued yet, it's going to take a while to develop significant new speed upgrades and in the meantime, the…

> They are going to lose money when people buy new RAM, rather than a whole new laptop. You're thinking about this the wrong way around. Suppose the user has $800 to buy a new laptop. That's enough to get one with a faster processor than they have right now or more memory, but not both. If they buy one and it's not upgradable, that's not worth it. Wait another year, save up another $200, then buy the one that has bot…

I doubt the consumer mass that actually matters to manufacturer's earnings understands RAM value and if the computer they are buying is RAM-upgradable or not.

They are going to buy the 800$, any of the two, complain when it inevitably "works slower" in a couple of years (if they are lucky), and buy a new 800$ once again then. I don't see the manufacturer's motivation to offer upgradable RAM.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#135

Post by AnthonyMouse »

petemir wrote: post #134
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are going to lose money when people buy new RAM, rather than a whole new laptop. You're thinking about this the wrong way around. Suppose the user has $800 to buy a new laptop. That's enough to get one with a faster processor than they have right now or more memory, but not both. If they buy one and it's not upgradable, that's not worth it. Wait another year, save up another $200, then buy the one that has bot…

I doubt the consumer mass that actually matters to manufacturer's earnings understands RAM value and if the computer they are buying is RAM-upgradable or not. They are going to buy the 800$, any of the two, complain when it inevitably "works slower" in a couple of years (if they are lucky), and buy a new 800$ once again then. I don't see the manufacturer's motivation to offer upgradable RAM.

They don't have $800 to buy another one so soon. So they take the one that "works slower" to some tech who knows the deal and tells them this machine sucks because you can't upgrade it, and now they think your brand is crap (because it is), curse you for the next however many years until they have the money and then buy the next one from someone else.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#136

Post by ansible »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #85
OJFord wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't find that a particularly complete explanation - and the slot can't be closer to the CPU because? - I think it must be more about parasitic properties of the card edge connector on DIMMs being problematic at lower voltage (and higher frequencies) or something. Note the solution is a ball grid connection and the whole thing's shielded. I suppose in fairness and to the explanation it does give, the other thing…

> and the slot can't be closer to the CPU because? All the traces going into the slot need to be length-matched to obscene precision, and the physical width of the slot and the room required by the "wiggles" made in the middle traces to length-match them restrict how close you can put the slot. Most modern boards are designed to place it as close as possible. LPCAMM2 fixes this by having a lot of the length-matching…

Generally speaking, layout for modern DRAM (LPDDRx, etc.) is a giant pain. Trace width, differential trace length matching, spacing, number of vias, and more.

And all this is needed even though the DRAM signaling standard has extensive measurement and analysis of the traces built right into the hardware of the DRAM and the memory controller on the processor. They negotiate the speed and latency at runtime.

Giant pain.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#137

Post by rock_artist »

drivingmenuts wrote: post #46
orev wrote: post #14

I’m glad they explained why RAM has become soldered to the board recently. It’s easy to be cynical and assume they were doing it for profit motive purposes (which might be a nice side effect), but it’s good to know that there’s also a technical reason to solder it. Even better to know that it’s been recognized and a solution is being worked on.

The problem is getting manufacturers to implement the new RAM standard. While the justifications given are great for the consumer, I didn't see any reason for a manufacturer to sign on. They are going to lose money when people buy new RAM, rather than a whole new laptop. While processor speeds and size haven't plateaued yet, it's going to take a while to develop significant new speed upgrades and in the meantime, the…

Unlike Apple, where they are in in-direct competition on computer hardware, For PCs, If Lenovo starts doing it, then it's a marketing point. now Asus, HP, Dell would try and get it.

So it's the egg and the chicken where if it'll be important to consumers, it might end up as catching up.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#138

Post by brookst »

yread wrote: post #127
orev wrote: post #14

I’m glad they explained why RAM has become soldered to the board recently. It’s easy to be cynical and assume they were doing it for profit motive purposes (which might be a nice side effect), but it’s good to know that there’s also a technical reason to solder it. Even better to know that it’s been recognized and a solution is being worked on.

If they soldered a decent amount that gou can be sure you don't ever need to upgrade it would be fine (seriously, 64GB ram costs like 100eur, non issue in a 1000eur laptop). 8 is not enough already and 16 will soon be limiting too.

Is the goal to not have any computers that are limited to a single task? Tons of corporate IT purchases go to someone only using e.g. Word all day. Do we really care if they are provisioned with “enough” memory for you or me?

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#139

Post by brookst »

Vogtinator wrote: post #126
klausa wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's RAM is not soldered to the _motherboard_, it's part of the SoC package.

Only recently. It started out as soldered to the main board.

No, it started out as chips in sockets. I (dimly) remember upgrading my II+, I think from 32kb to 48kb?

A lot has changed.

Re: LPCAMM2 is a modular, repairable, upgradeable memory standard for laptops

#140

Post by nuancebydefault »

yread wrote: post #127
orev wrote: post #14

I’m glad they explained why RAM has become soldered to the board recently. It’s easy to be cynical and assume they were doing it for profit motive purposes (which might be a nice side effect), but it’s good to know that there’s also a technical reason to solder it. Even better to know that it’s been recognized and a solution is being worked on.

If they soldered a decent amount that gou can be sure you don't ever need to upgrade it would be fine (seriously, 64GB ram costs like 100eur, non issue in a 1000eur laptop). 8 is not enough already and 16 will soon be limiting too.

10 percent is not neglectible. Also 64GB is a lot _today_ but most probably not 5 years from now. The alternative of buying a new laptop feels like a big waste.
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