Turbo Memory

OK, well as i've seen in these threads there's some for and some against turbo memory 2.0. I'm going to be getting the sager np8660 with 4GB of ram and the 320GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache). So would Turbo Memory 4GB module be worth me ?
xotic prices
2GB Intel® Robson Turbo Memory II ( + 45 )
4GB Intel® Robson Turbo Memory II ( + 75 )

 

I'd say it is a rip off. I've never read a positive article about Turbo Memory, best to save the money.

 

ok, from what i read most was negative so i was going to ask some people before i made my decision, i'm going to wait for one more response before i finalize my decision though...

 

Waste of money, for sure!

 

turbo memory is just a failed product. It really only does anything on very very slow laptops. If you have a 7200rpm drive the turbo memory will not make your system faster, it will do nothing to increase performance

Your better off not even using it

K-TRON

 

ok, i was 90% sure it'd be useless then i saw a few threads that were like "hey this thing is worthwhile" etc. etc.

 

Well, the newer version is more useful than the old one. Although I agree it's totally useless for speeding up your computer if it's got >=2GB of RAM, with the pinning feature, you should be able to use it to load programs quicker.
Also, you could use it as a scratch pad if you do stuff like this: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=260741

 

meh for 75USD not worth it to just do that imo. Also great sig +rep.

 

Objection. No hard drives will have the read access times of even the SLOWEST flash memory out there. In theory, using the flash memory as speed-up is a good idea. One of the reasons that the 2nd version of Turbo Memory has much better view over the first one is I believe because the driver has matured so much.

 

It should be faster, but from the majority of users they state no performance increase. It is a good idea, but tis a shame it doesnt actually work very well.

K-TRON

 

Well, Intel screwed up with the first Turbo Memory launch. Back then, there was no improvement touted.

Now we see few users. You know why?? It's cause the driver matured. But the view on ITM is so bad, nobody uses them anymore. Few user review I see nowadays is much more positive than it was when it first released.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3009&p=6

The basic view I got from the review was that the driver was so immature, it couldn't properly enable ITM!!

Now, it has significantly matured and that's why users are seeing differences.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=289951&page=5

Ever read about Intel having driver problems with their IGPs?? Well it applies EVERYWHERE. They suck at software. They are hardware guys really.

Capacity matters too of course. The ITM in Montevina has 2GB and 4GB sizes. Calpella will have 8GB and 16GB sizes.

(Read the release notes for the ITM driver. The fixes always seem so significant. Calpella with integrated NAND controller on the PCH and more polished drivers are gonna do a lot for fixing ITM's image)

 

Ok, then so you're saying it'd be worth getting. So have we seen anyone using the sager NP8660 and it working for a benefit? Because if not i'm not feeling like wasting my cash.

 

If your getting a 7200rpm drive dont worry about it, it will run faster than the ITM will

K-TRON

 

ok just making sure b/c that guy seemed to be pretty cofident in this technology...

 

Can't you just theoretically plug in a 4gb thumb drive into your usb instead of getting the turbo memory?

Which brings up another question - is it possible use both turbo memory AND plug in an additional thumb drive and have them work concurrently for readyboost etc...

 

They are very similar, but no you cant run both concurrently. That is because the ITM uses the pcie bus, and a USB card uses the usb bus. The USB bus is much slower than the onboard pcie header, so USB readyboost isnt as good.

K-TRON

 

Question, could you now use the turbo memory as your pagefile on your computer vs using the hard drive? If so it wouldn't be that bad of a product

 

One of the features I have heard about Turbo Memory is battery savings. The laptop I am getting does not have the best of run times on battery, if I could get something to increase the battery time for a decent price I would like to at least try it out, anyone have any actual hands on experience and noticed increase run times w/ turbo memory?

 

Hello all... yes Inteluser and I had quite a discussion about it on this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=289951. A thumb drive isn't as good (in fact it is bad) because they are ~3x slower (70MBps vs. 20MBps)

Basically, ITM 2.0 will load programs that are pinned to it ~50% faster than your HDD but it's still buggy and after startup system resources will be taken for a time pinning the prog from HDD to ITM. ITM 1.0 is truly useless.

_Nate