Screenshot Shows 256GB of RAM in a Threadripper System

AlphaAtlas

AlphaAtlas

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While AMD's Threadripper platform technically supports 256GB of RAM spread across 8 slots, there are some practical issues that make building such a system difficult. Most TR4 motherboards officially support 128GB of DDR4, and unregistered 32GB DIMMs aren't widely available yet. But ComputerBase.de found a screenshot of a Threadripper system that appears to be running 256GB of consumer-grade RAM.

The system in question seems to use SL Link J4BGUS2G8QHBC memory modules, and ComputerBase.de notes that they have twice the number of memory chips a typical 16GB stick has. But the ASUS ROG Zenith Extreme motherboard apparently has no issue running the high capacity sticks. The sticks are running at a relatively modest 2666Mhz with CL20 timings, but that's supposedly faster that what Threadripper is rated for at such high capacities anyway. While the 32GB sticks Samsung listed last year are still nowhere to be seen, these sticks apparently use Samsung memory ICs.
 
I wonder how long we'll have to wait until we've gotten to the point where there are so many abstraction layers of software in programming languages / toolkits that 256GB of ram is "normal".

Actually, i'm gonna bet that most of modern and future ram usage comes from having to buffer/cache the 8k 500dpi image assets every application has to use. So 10 years or so?
 
And to think I want 64GB in my next laptop....
Just load up a whole movie to edit into RAM without touching the SSD until it's finished.

Are people still doing RAM drives these days?
 
Darth Ender said:
I wonder how long we'll have to wait until we've gotten to the point where there are so many abstraction layers of software in programming languages / toolkits that 256GB of ram is "normal".

Actually, i'm gonna bet that most of modern and future ram usage comes from having to buffer/cache the 8k 500dpi image assets every application has to use. So 10 years or so?
Click to expand...

Commercial end, perhaps. On the user end? Much longer and if ever if we move to streaming games.
 
Darth Ender said:
I wonder how long we'll have to wait until we've gotten to the point where there are so many abstraction layers of software in programming languages / toolkits that 256GB of ram is "normal".

Actually, i'm gonna bet that most of modern and future ram usage comes from having to buffer/cache the 8k 500dpi image assets every application has to use. So 10 years or so?
Click to expand...
You need to think research: math, physics, etc. Those kinds of programs can use that kind of RAM right now.
 
When I started my current job 12 years ago, the most powerful server in the office was an exchange server with 2GB ram.
I now have a server with 256GB of ram (using 16 sticks of 16GB each), and a few more servers with 128GB or more.

I've already deployed a few laptops with 32GB ram.

It's mainly due to virtualization.
With 10+ core CPU's and SSD's the main limit I run into for virtualization is ram. More ram means I can run more virtual servers.
 
nutzo said:
2x the price, and they don't work in systems with only SATA connections.

Do I spend $50K on a new server with NVME drives or upgrade an existing server for $4k using server level SSD's that are 5-10 times faster than the existing mechanical drives?
Click to expand...


You are talking about Oranges and Volkswagons.

Threadripper, main topic, is a server grade chip (EPYC) in a consumer based package, meant for power users on desktops, not meant for servers but can perform pretty well in a 'server' type role if needbe. All the motherboards that threadripper supports has NVME slots in them, why you would use SSD's with 1/6 the speed/performance when you are dropping an easy $1k on CPU/MOBO is not effective and hampers the reason you are getting a Threadripper to begin with.

Conversely: Business' need fast storage, they need more storage, they need scratch space, they have budgets, they need to use their equipment as long as they can as best as they can. Replacing spinning 10k RPM disks with higher performance SSD's is a cheap and easy way to reuse 'old' equipment on a budget. Massive performance gains at a fraction of the price. Bonus' for all!
 
It still blows my mind that a couple of years ago we had a user here get 256gb of DDR4 onto their Asrock X99 ITX motherboard (128gb RDIMMs I believe)
 
Tbird761 said:
I don't understand that CPU info screenshot. There is no such product as a "2990X".
Click to expand...
There is, they announced it a few months back.

AMD Threadripper 2990X is a 32-core 64-thread chip that offers a 3 GHz base clock and 4.2 GHz turbo clock on single core, using an AIO liquid cooler it has been shown to hit 4.12 GHz on all cores. Retails for around $1800 USD
 
Lakados said:
There is, they announced it a few months back.

AMD Threadripper 2990X is a 32-core 64-thread chip that offers a 3 GHz base clock and 4.2 GHz turbo clock on single core, using an AIO liquid cooler it has been shown to hit 4.12 GHz on all cores. Retails for around $1800 USD
Click to expand...
2990WX, but only 2990X is shown in the screenshots. I wonder if this is normal for 2990WX owners?
 
That is pretty cool, but that's a lot of RAM for a workstation.

I have 192GB registered ECC in my VM server, but I do think know what I would do with that much ram in a workstation.
 
Slash3 said:
That was a pre launch speculation post - the shipping parts are 2970WX and 2990WX.
Click to expand...
Yes sorry but the 2990X was an announced part, and a number of sites were given engineering samples that were sent out as the 2990X not the WX. You can even find material from Computex 2018 where AMD calls it the 2990X, their own launch material said it was scheduled to launch on August 13'th of 2018. So I am guessing somewhere down the line they renamed it, but a lot of samples exist out there under the X not the WX name.
 
Armenius said:
You need to think research: math, physics, etc. Those kinds of programs can use that kind of RAM right now.
Click to expand...

well obviously you can find cases where that amount of ram can be used. my comment was regarding when it will be considered normal.

Like how 8+ GB is normal now. But 20 (windows 98 era) years ago all your normal software you could ever think to run was fine with systems having < 100MB of ram.

I think image assets will be the bulk of memory usage for normal workloads. They already consume a massive percentage of memory in mobile where image assets have to be very large to avoid dynamic upscaling.

For me, compiling large projects will eat into some of my machines pretty good but I max out the ram in all my new computers i build anymore so they all have 64 or in the case of itx, 32GB ...which most of the time end up as filesystem cache and tmpfs mounts. I have yet found the need to jump into tr4. I want to but the justification just isn't there yet for me. A future ryzen laptop is a more attractive option.

edit: ramdisks could be useful as a block level cache for slower disks / slower raids but only if you want to fake out sync() ...and can bet on your UPS keeping the computer on long enough to really sync the block cache'd ramdisk to the actual disk or hybernate. Not sure if you'd need them anymore for anything else now that tmpfs exists.
 
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Lakados said:
Yes sorry but the 2990X was an announced part, and a number of sites were given engineering samples that were sent out as the 2990X not the WX. You can even find material from Computex 2018 where AMD calls it the 2990X, their own launch material said it was scheduled to launch on August 13'th of 2018. So I am guessing somewhere down the line they renamed it, but a lot of samples exist out there under the X not the WX name.
Click to expand...
There is not and has never been a commercial 2990X. Don't confuse rumors and speculation with fact.
 
MMMM... I wants. I have a program that can use that much RAM and more.

My current desktop only has 32GB and my laptop has 16GB.. but only because I didn't have 4 matching 8GB sticks... now I do. I really should install the other 2 sticks at some point.

I did try 64GB in my desktop at one point but my motherboard didn't like the specific RAM sticks so I just went with 32GB.
 
I had 32GB in the past 2 machines, so i am shooting for 64GB with my new threadripper machine.
But its a build in progress when it come to RAM, just got a pension and i cant rob more little old ladies as i feel the ground burn under me.
 
When someone with 128GB of ram heard the news.
ApprehensiveCreamyBighornedsheep-small.gif
 
Doesn't matter, Chrome will eat any amount of your memory you throw at it for breakfast. Meanwhile, I have 19 tabs open, IYKWIM.
 
Wow, impressive. Well beyond anything I would need. Be a hell of a ram drive.....
 
nutzo said:
When I started my current job 12 years ago, the most powerful server in the office was an exchange server with 2GB ram.
I now have a server with 256GB of ram (using 16 sticks of 16GB each), and a few more servers with 128GB or more.

I've already deployed a few laptops with 32GB ram.

It's mainly due to virtualization.
With 10+ core CPU's and SSD's the main limit I run into for virtualization is ram. More ram means I can run more virtual servers.
Click to expand...

Are you sure it was 2GB in that server? If that so, then it was a pretty low end machine. At that time 2GB was high end in a laptop and my rather average gaming box had 4GB at the time. Granted that 2GB was certainly decent amount and perhaps somewhat above mainstream, it was no high end by any means. My VM box has 128GB using 16GB sticks which is pretty nice and can be had for very little on eBay as long as you're not shooting for latest stuff, excellent cost vs benefit ration if you're building a home lab or the like.
 
Most major servers support up to 4TB for SAP and other high end enterprise apps.
not quite the same thing but still
 
zkostik said:
Are you sure it was 2GB in that server? If that so, then it was a pretty low end machine. At that time 2GB was high end in a laptop and my rather average gaming box had 4GB at the time. Granted that 2GB was certainly decent amount and perhaps somewhat above mainstream, it was no high end by any means. My VM box has 128GB using 16GB sticks which is pretty nice and can be had for very little on eBay as long as you're not shooting for latest stuff, excellent cost vs benefit ration if you're building a home lab or the like.
Click to expand...

This was back in 2006, so almost everything was still 32 bit.

The server had a pair of Xeons, 2GB ram, and (4) 70GB scsi drives in Raid 5.
Running Windows 2003 32 bit so the server couldn't use more than 4GB or ram.
Exchange 2003 was a 32 bit application and couldn't really make use of more than 2GB of ram.
I upgrade it to 3GB of ram, so Exchange could use 2 and still have 1GB left for the OS.

Most the workstations had 2.4 Ghz P4's, IDE drives and 256KB of ram, running Windows 2000 or XP.
I standardized the workstations on XP, Office 2003, and added a 1GB simm to bring the memory up to 1.25 GB
 
The Mad Atheist said:
And to think I want 64GB in my next laptop....
Just load up a whole movie to edit into RAM without touching the SSD until it's finished.

Are people still doing RAM drives these days?
Click to expand...
My next WS will make use of them (did in past game and edit on 16gb ram it's barely enough) as you still can't beat em really.
Compared to fast SSD short of video editing or many tiny files I don't think you'd notice though.
 
M76 said:
That site looks like a remnant from the 90s, doesn't exactly instill trust in me. And you need a great amount of trust for this type of application.
Click to expand...

It's good stuff. I'm glad they spend more time writing good stable code that works than fussing with prissy web design.

To each their own...
 
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