8GB SO-DIMMs

Does anyone know when we are likely to see larger SODIMMs become available?

 

You need 16GB's of RAM in a laptop now?

 

If you need 16GB there are several laptops now that have 4 slots for power users. Else, you probably don't even need more than 4GB...

 

imagine the envy 15 with 8GB dimms? wow. 32GB ram. (the 15 has 4 slots).

 

4GB is more than enough for most ppl...and anyways it will be a few more years before 8GB RAM modules become available...

 

I agree it's gonna be atleast 2 years, the 4GB dimms are still stupid expensive.

 

Would any currently existing laptop even support a hypothetical 8 GB SODIMM?

 

to my knowledge no.

 

Incorrect.
A lot of laptops have the ability to upgrade to over 4GB of RAM ... some users on this very site have such laptops.
My own chipset for example is capable of taking 8GB easy, but question remains if Acer's BIOS supports such large quantities of RAM.

Furthermore, to my knowledge, 4GB RAM sticks for laptops ARE available.
They are rare though, and quite expensive.

 

About $120 for 4GB DDR2 SO-DIMMs or $170 for DDR3 SO-DIMMs (from www.ewiz.com). More expensive than 2GB SO-DIMMS certainly, but hardly "stupid expensive".

 

I believe the I7 with an integrated memory controller might be able to handle it since its based on a server architecture but whether someone will make a chip like that is down to how long we keep using ddr3.

All the new I7/5/3 processors are using it so i guess we have at least a year, if the process shrinks go well you never know, they can charge what they like and people would buy it.

To all asking why you need that kind of ram pop over to the dell m6500 thread, there are plenty of people spending a serious amount of cash on it as their laptops are tools for work, not toys. Personally I plan on fitting my own at £250 odds for 8gigs of ram that will let me run several VM's, its not that expensive.

 

I think he was referring to a single 8gb dimm in one slot... in which case he's right. The bios on most laptops are only now starting to support 4gb per slot.

 

Not really, i've seen sets for 300 bucks, Kingston.

 

Sets as in 2 sticks of DDR3? Point me to 'em. The places I've looked have 1 stick for like 250-280. That's high considering the last stick I bought was DDR2 for my MacBook, and it was like 30 bucks.

 

I'm glad someone on here understands. I need to run a lot of VM's but I'm also in the air a lot so I'm trying to balance the tension between (processing) power and portability (size & weight). I'm looking at one of the new HP EliteBooks (8440 or 8540) and if 8GB SO-DIMMs are on the horizon I could opt for the 14" model (2 slots) if not it's the 15.6" model with 4 slots.

 

See, now that makes since for why someone would need more than 8GB of memory.

 

well , just buy a hp envy 15 or Precission M6500... they have 4 RAM slots...

 

Well I would have thought battery life would have been a greater concern on a plane, for VM's you really should be getting an I7 with all the acceleration extensions it gives and you would be lucky to get 2 hrs.

I would go 4 slot as an 2x8gb sodimms will cost more than 2 x high end 8gb laptops.

 

your right, that's what I was referring to.

300$ for a set of DDR2 or 3 is a great deal, but still stupid expensive, you'd get a lot more value of a intel G2 80GB SSD.

 

The envy has known problems with heat, an external optical drive, a scrabble tile keyboard, a glossy screen and it's a consumer notebook and therefore probably not very well built. (That said I did think about it briefly)

The precision is larger and heavier than the 8540 which I mentioned earlier which also has 4 DIMM slots.

 

The two models I mentioned (8540, 8440) are both going to be available with an i7 processor and they both come in a "p-series" configuration which gives you the option of adding a 2nd slimline battery underneath the notebook (therefore not taking up any more room on an airline tray) and it provides (according to the marketing) 24hrs of battery.

Granted running VMs will probably eat into this but I'd be very surprised if there were many other notebooks on the market that could do much better.

As for cost... perhaps you're right, but the main problem for me with the larger machines (the one's with 4 slots) is that they have a numeric keypad (which I know some people love) but I hate them on a laptop - it causes the keyboard to be too much off center causing me to mistype and it makes all the issues with laptops and posture all that much worse.

I hate to seem rude but I asked a specific question, I didn't ask which model of notebook to buy and I don't really appreciate having to justify why I want so much RAM.

I appreciate that everyone is just trying to help but can anyone else who replies to this thread please just offer comments on my actual question rather than giving me advice.

Thanks

 

lol.. You're not rude, it's just so easy to get off topic around here.. sorry. But I'd simply say within the next 2 years. With the new i7's and i5's coming with integrated memory controllers and 1333mhz speeds, it's only a matter of time.

 

I'm glad you didn't take offence... it's just a little frustrating is all.

I suspect that you're right (although I have been wondering if there is some conceptual limit to the SO-DIMM form factor when used with DDR3). ie. perhaps 8GB (16GB etc.) is not possible within the current spec.

I've been thinking that perhaps with all these 4-slot machines now available it may ironically bring forward larger DIMMs so that vendors can claim that their smaller 2-slot machines can still compete with larger machines. (Thinking out aloud here)

 

Actually every once-in-a-while samsung or some other company will come out with a higher capacity memory chip for RAM products and sizes just keep increasing and increasing... See on an old ram stick they'd have 8 chips on each side of desktop memory DIMM's and each chip would be 32mb so together they'd be a single 512mb stick. Today those capacities are a lot higher with faster speeds and timings. Really it comes down to manufacturing processes, and I think right now they're down to 32nm or smaller for memory products.. maybe even 22nm.

 

Just my imagination running; but i think the biggest hurdle to 8GB DIMMs in laptops is just getting your hands on some affordably. Your laptop might say it only supports so much RAM but I have found those limitations to not exist most of the time, as long as you've got a modern 64-bit CPU.

 

Indeed, I remember those days... hell I remember DIP and SIP RAM

Not sure if Samsung are at 22nm yet, I know intel are and amd are looking for 22nm design staff.

Yes the price will certainly be steep at first. The other hurdle will be the BIOS, but I expect that HP, Dell, etc. aught to keep these up to date on the pro-series machines at least.

 

I believe most cpus still are limited to 48bits address space so there is a limit there but its a massive one. Most ram socket changes are because of changes to the way the controller talks to the chip or operating frequency/voltage.

Even back in ddr1 days there were companies producing 16gig stacked ram chips for servers, they cost a HUGE amount and worked in pretty standard server boards.


http://www.vikingmodular.com/products/dram.asp

These guys seem to have ddr3 stacked ram but the fact they aint even advertising prices is pretty telling.


Re the 24 hr battery thing, thats got to hold some serious juice if you have a laptop drawing 70+ watts.

 

well if the envy and precission is out of the case , there nothing else u can do... just get any laptop with core i7 and 8GB RAM...

 

Doubt you will see 8GB SO-DIMM modules for at least a year. While the 8540p/w is a great model, just note that only the quad core model will support 4 SO-DIMMs (I believe this is true for the Envy 15, Lenovo W510, and possibly the unreleased Dell Latitude E6510/Precision M4500).

 

Definately not a problem as I will be using this machine to run lots of VMs I'll definately be opting for quad core... hell if they offered 8 cores I'd being opting for that.

 

I can do Matched sets of Crucial or Corsair DDR3 4gb SoDimm for about $475 all day long. I Guess I should post on the Sellers board that i'll take orders.

 

This thread is awesome.

A few years ago I posted pretty much this exact question, except _my_ question was "When will 4GB RAM chips be coming out for notebooks, does anyone know?"

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=141920

It's hilarious, because the responses are EXACTLY the same. "What, there are any notebooks that can use 8GB a of RAM?" "You'd never need more than 4GB, and 2GB is really enough!" "Here let me tell you what your needs are."


It's stunning...

Even more so, since my response was more or less the same. "I develop and use VMs."

In any case, I also long for the higher RAM. That was in 2007, so, it might be closer to happening than people realize. I'll do a little research today and see if I can pull anything up.


Addendum:

http://www.google.com/products/cata...ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBEQ8wIwAg#ps-sellers

I found a chip. It's 2 8GB modules for 2000$, sadly.

 

Nice find.

 

Too bad it's DDR2 and no new notebook supports that.

 

Really? None support DDR2 anymore? Holy crap, i didn't know that.

 

Slightly misleading. Core I5 and I7 do not support DDR3. Core 2 still does, including Core2 Quad. AMD does as well, I believe, though I cannot find any quad core amd notebooks.

Anyways, here are some DDR2 notebooks of varying size.

Dual Core:

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/e...ntbk-pc&psn=notebooks_tablet_pcs/notebook_pcs

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/...ps & netbooks^ThinkPad laptops^ThinkPad Edge"


http://www.dell.com/us/en/business/...x?refid=laptop-vostro-1720&s=bsd&cs=04&~ck=mn

http://www.dell.com/us/en/business/....aspx?refid=laptop_latitude_e6500&s=bsd&cs=04


Quad core:
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=j9EAEJubYZtCZDcP

 

Most of those older Stacked Chip simms were "smart" simms; eg they had their own on-board memory controller, much like ECC. it causes latency lag and raises the price but it's out there for people who need to be an early adopter of extreme amounts of Ram