Intel Turbo Memory (Robson Cache)

I just installed Turbo memory in my Dell XPS M1330 and decided to run some benchmarks in sisoft sandra. The results are pretty impressive the trubo memory is freakishly fast.

In the file system benchmark I tested C:\ drive as normal and noticed no diffrence . But then I noticed I had a new item I could test NVCACHE so I ran it and it scored 3393 MB/s with 0ms access time. Which is increadably fast I mean the fastest hard drive setup sandra has scores for is getting 144 MB/s.

Also you can give the cache a drive letter and use it like a very tiny but very fast hard drive .

I'll post screen shots later once I'm home

 

how small/large is it?

 

its 512MB and after looking at it its where the vista ready boost cache is put which is set to take up 500MB on my comp atm. Im going to see later if I can manage to shrink the readyboost cache size or if I can disable readyboost and still get access to the drive.

There is another 512MB being used for readydrive but that seems to be totally integrated and I can't get access to that one.

 

That is small. I have not read up on that too much, but it does seem to small for what we all want high speed storage to replace HDD. Non Volatile RAM pretty much. But if I am right about that does the system know to go there 1st? Hows it going to work?

 

Well 1stly it only works with windows vista. And it uses inbuilt windows vista features.

Basically you have probably heard of readyboost which uses a memory stick or flash card to store page files information after the ram is full as opposed to storing the info on the page file area of the hard drive. This is normally an advantage as memory sticks and flash memory have lower access time than hard drives. So this just replaces the need for a memory stick or flash card by giving you 512MB though PCI-E which has low access times and from the looks of things is a lot faster than a hard drive so in effect its like adding 512MB of slower speed non-volatile RAM becasue the computer uses it like ram when the ram is full.

The other 512MB is for a vista feature called readydrive which basicaly takes advantage of Hybrid-HDD's. You have probably heard that hybrid drives are better becasue they have 128 or 256 MB of flash cache which has very low access times and can be used to store commonly used hard drive info which means the hard drive can stop spinning and the cache can be accessed saving battery life or it can improve performance. Well this 512MB from the turbo memory basically turns your hard drive into a hybrid drive with a 512MB cache. If you have a hybrid hard drive already the turbo memory does not work.

 

What software did you install for Robson? I dl'ed the newest drivers off of Intel's website but it's not letting me see the drive as a hard drive.

 

How much difference did you notice outside of a benchmark? What are your specs?

 

To see the extra drive you must enable readyboost in the intel Turbo Memory Console. Then right click on my computer -> manage -> Disk Managment
Then goto the one labled NVCACHE and give it a drive letter.

Well I havn't been using my laptop much since I put it on but it does load windows faster now. And also when watching a DVD the hard drive is switched off teh entire time. Also while watching movies from teh hard drive the hard drive switches off for periods of a few minutes which i guess is saving battery life

 

Oops forgot to put system specs so here they are

Santa Rosa chipset
CPU: T7300 (2Ghz)
RAM: 2gig 667Mhz
HDD: 160gig 7200RPM seagate Momentus
GFX: 8400GS 128MB
Wireless: Intel 4965 AGN

and 1gig Intel Turbo Memory

 

Ben a side point could you bench (RAM) SiSoft memory bandwidth, and copy to clipboard and post, helps more than a picture. Thanks remember AMD w/533Mhz RAM mine is 3900MB/s, what's yours?

 

Well I havn't installed photoshop yet so I used paint but anyways heres the screenies.

The numbers for ram seem about right as I got 65% efficiency and that seems about the max that seems attainable for some reason :s