Archive for: memory
Long time memory and recent SSD maker, OCZ Technology Group, announced Monday via a 2011 fiscal report that they were accelerating plans to exit the memory market. According to said report, the rapid increase in SSD sales combined with stagnant and low margin memory market sped up the company’s departure as they weren’t planning on closing down memory operations quite so soon.
If OCZ was one of your favorite memory manufacturers, now’s the time to pick up a few sticks — because once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.
Samsung Electronics announced today that it has officially developed the world’s first DDR4 modules using a 30nm design process, with a transfer rate peaking at 2.133Gigabits per second @ 1.2 volts. Compare that to DDR3′s best attempts of 1.6Gbps @ 1.35V and 1.5V and you can see where the heat and energy savings come into play. For PC enthusiasts, the next frontier of custom computers is on the horizon thanks in part to DDR4′s increased performance and decreased energy consumption. Granted, it will still be many months before we see any DDR4 on retails store shelves. However, it should excite you nonetheless.
Look for further DDR4 news at CES and later on in 2011.
- December 17, 2010 7:16 am
We may all drool over the latest and greatest PC hardware as it trickles onto the web, but quite honestly, it’s the same story year after year. More transistors, more cores, more efficiency combined with more processing power. The real excitement however, will come when scientists finally unlock quantum computing for the masses. The potential of such technology has far reaching and incredibly powerful potential. And thanks to the help of several intelligent physicists at the University of Utah, we are now one step closer to such technology…
- November 30, 2010 6:10 am
As cameras grow in megapixel count, gain video recording capabilities, and life’s demands request more and more pictures, the memory cards that store said memories are pushed to their limits. Though, storage space isn’t really a concern. Numbers for such things have exploded over the last few years to the point that anyone can pick up more memory or storage than they’ll probably ever use for photos. But what good is a 2TB memory card if it transfers at a pokey 10-100MB/s?
Nikon, Sandisk, and Sony are coming to our aide, as they have started work on a next-gen Compact Flash standard that would see speeds raised from 100MB/s to nearly 600MB/s. A 6x increasing in transfer speeds could certainly give hardcore photographers a nice chunk of their day back that is currently wasted on waiting for images to transfer. The only downside of course, is that the new standard won’t be backwards compatible with existing Compact Flash technology.
For now, the wait looks pretty long. The Compact Flash Association is just beginning to receive the trio’s ideas and plans. From there begins many, many months of testing and planning. But if it brings about dramatically improved Compact Flash transfer speeds, I personally don’t mind the wait.
- November 25, 2010 10:59 pm
The chief goal of iOS 4.2.1 was to bring the iPad up to iPhone 4 spec feature-wise. While the media was consumed by the bigger talking points such as folders, multitasking/quick app switching, and AirPrint/AirPlay, memory optimization was perhaps of even greater importance due to the rather quick jump in standard memory (128 -> 256 -> 512MB).
The image above is taken from Italian Apple site ipadevice and shows the shrinking memory footprint of several iOS apps as Apple worked through the latest betas. The optimizations aren’t too surprising though. With three memory sizes to deal with currently, Apple had to do something to make the masses happy.
On that note, how is 4.2.1 treating iPhone 3G users?
Another nail is being pound into the traditional platter-based, spinning hard drive’s dominance. OCZ, popular computer hardware manufacturer, is planning to open a new plant dedicated solely to pumping out high quality solid state hard drives. In doing this, OCZ will effectively triple their SSD output from the current ~50,000 units per month to more than 140,000.
That’s good for a two main reasons. (1) We the consumer will have more options when it comes to SSD and (2) it will help drive down the cost of SSDs. The latter point is the big win for me. I simply have too much media, which would make a transition to SSD an extremely costly one. Once SSD’s hit the ~$250 range for 500GB or more, then I’ll bite. Until then, it’s old school for me.
How much RAM does your work project need? How about 32GB of RAM…on a laptop! Yeah, even though 32GB of RAM all things considered, is a lot, it somehow doesn’t have the same luster it might have a year or two ago. Though in retro fashion, all of that new fangled geekery will cost you dearly at check-out time. Equipping a Dell M6500 workstation laptop with 32GB of RAM will cost your company a cool $9,300 when all is said and done.
Given that a good chunk of IT departments are down sizing and getting extra frugal, something tells me they’re not going to approve this “just ’cause”. Of course, we have to ask — What exactly would you need 32GB of RAM on a more straight-laced business laptop for anyway? Monster Excel spreadsheets…I think not. Here’s to fantasy, folks…
Want a faster compupter? I mean, really faster? Usually we’d look at the processor (for multitaskers) or GPU (for gamers). The speed of RAM doesn’t return very much “bang for your buck” speed in most of life’s situations. That 2,000MHz+ RAM is more or less for bragging rights in all but the most extreme cases.
- February 22, 2010 1:45 pm
For flash storage buffs, the still several year out 2TB SDXC cards seem like it’s as good as it’ll get, or at the very least, the most exciting thing in flash storage. I too thought that — until five minutes ago. You see, it was then that I stumbled onto an article highlighting CompactFlash 5.0 and it’s new capacity ceiling. So, just how high will it go?
How’s 144 petabytes sound? Yes, that’s a P as in a ton. I don’t even have 1TB worth of data (yet) to store on a hard drive, let alone 144,,000 TB’s to store on a card no larger than a saltine cracker.
Data densities are obviously not quite advanced enough to tap the new capacity limits of CompactFlash 5.0. But rest assured that when it does, you and your fifty bajillion pictures will have a safe and happy home.
Ubergizmo > Electronista
