RAM - Page 18

Neuralink will be showing off their brain-computer interface (BCI) technology on August 28, with the Elon Musk-backed company teasing some rather big -- and cryptic, things.

Musk tweeted out on July 31 that the upcoming Neuralink BCI demonstration would be showing the world "neurons firing in real-time on August 28". He finished off the tweet with "the matrix in the matrix", which is a gigantic tease on its own.

The limitation of communicating, using, or accessing technology has always been the input -- typing, or speaking into a smartphone, laptop, console, or TV. Our brains and our input methods are slow, but computers can transfer over a trillion bits of data per second -- humans are too slow.

Thermaltake today announced the availability of 32GB and 64GB dual-channel Toughram RGB memory kits in 3200MHz and 3600MHz configurations. The kits are compatible with AMD and Intel's latest chipsets, including AMD's B550 and Intel's Z490.

Thermaltake's new memory features a high-quality ten-layer PCB design, and the company said it uses "strictly selected" Hynix A-die 2GB memory chips to produce Toughram modules. The 32GB kits include dual 16GB modules, whereas the 64GB models offer 32GB per stick. Thermaltake is not currently offering 4-stick configurations, although you could combine two sets for double the memory capacity.

As the name suggests, the new Thermaltake Toughram RGB modules include RGB LEDs that allow you to customize your system's appearance.

GALAX has just unveiled two new kits of memory, aimed at high-end enthusiasts with the new Hall of Fame (HOF) OC Lab Diamond and HOF OC Lab Phantom lines of enthusiast-segment memory.

The first of which is the flagship DDR4-5000 memory kit with timings of 19-26-26-46 but GALAX hasn't detailed the voltages on this memory just yet. The DDR4-4800 kit has 19-22-22-46T timings that use 1.5V of power.

Here's the full list of GALAX Hall of Fame (HOF) OC Lab Diamond kits and their timings:

If you're based in Washington D.C. then you might not like this news, as Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser has just signed an executive order on Wednesday that requires DC residents to wear masks outside of their home.

The move has been done to stem COVID-19 coronavirus cases, with Bowser explaining in a press conference: "Basically what it says is, if you leave home, you should wear a mask. This means, if you're waiting for a bus, you must have on a mask. If you are ordering food at a restaurant, you must have on a mask. If you're sitting in a cubicle in an open office, you must have on a mask".

You will be fined $1000 per violation, while the new rules do not apply to children that are under the age of 3 -- as well as people who are eating or drinking.

G.Skill has announced the launch of new extreme-speed DDR4 memory kits that push 16GB and 8GB modules up to DDR4-4400 with low latency. Latencies for the memory are CL17-18-18-38 across-the-board under the Trident Z Royal family. G.Skill says that the memory modules are designed specifically for the latest Intel Z490 platform to achieve higher performance for gaming and content creation.

G.Skill says that as 32GB memory capacity becomes the standard for gaming and performance PC builds, it is rising to the challenge. The 32GB memory kit was stress-tested on an MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Plus motherboard using an Intel Core i5-10600K processor. The same memory was also tested on the ASRock Z490 Aqua motherboard using an Intel Core i9-10900K processor.

The high-speed, low-latency Trident Z Royal memory kits will be available via G.Skill worldwide distribution partners starting in Q3 2020. The memory modules are made using Samsung B-die ICs. The company has also announced some improved latencies for its 8GB x 2 DDR4-4400 kits.

Viper Gaming by Patriot has announced the addition of 32GB modules into its Viper Steel DDR4 UDIMM and SO-DIMM performance memory line. The frequencies available for the UDIMM modules are from 3000 MHz to 3600 MHz. SO-DIMM modules are available in 32GB, ranging from 2400 MHz to 3000 MHz.

All of the modules are built from rigorously tested memory chips and components placed on a 10-layer PCB for optimal performance inside gaming desktops and laptops. The Viper Steel memory provides extra gaming performance and stability for the most demanding desktop and laptop environments on both Intel and AMD platforms.

The memory modules support Intel XMP 2.0 performance. The kits are available as single or dual UDIMM. "The VIPER STEEL has been awarded by many PC hardware sites in 2019. The feedback from PC gaming communities around the world has demanded that we expand the VIPER STEEL to create larger 64GB memory kits," said Roger Shinmoto, the Vice President of VIPER GAMING by PATRIOT. "These new kits are not just for desktop gamers but apply to gaming laptop users and even mini-ITX builders as they benefit most from the 32GB modules."

The DRAM market is about to get hairy, with Chinese manufacturer Xi'an UnilC Semiconductors making its first DDR4 memory that is 100% made in China.

The 100% made in China part is interesting, as UnilC is using made-in-China parts from start to finish: all DRAM chips, PCB, drivers, and other required parts. It's a plain-looking stick of DDR4, with no RGB lighting or even a heatspreader -- but this is day one of making made-in-China DDR4 memory.

We have unbuffered DDR4-2400 and DDR4-2667 modules being made by UnilC in 8GB sticks. As for timings, we're looking at the DDR4-2400 module is timed at CL17 17-17-39, and the DDR4-2667 at CL18. Both of the modules use 1.2V. We're not going to see China take over the DDR4 market overnight, but this is a very big step in that direction.

ADATA has been making high-performance DRAM and NAND flash products along with other accessories for a long time. The company has announced that its XPG Overclocking Lab, in conjunction with MSI, has been able to overclock its Spectrix D50 and D60G 32 GB RGB DDR4 memory modules to a frequency of 5000 MHz on an Intel Z490 platform. ADATA says that feat not only shows its modules compatibility with the latest Intel platform to bring out the module's full performance potential but also its stability.

ADATA D60G DRAM has more RGB lighting per mm2 than other memory modules available. That means that more than 60% of the surface area of the module is covered. The RAM also had fully exposed light diffusers that are extra-wide for maximum effect.

XPG Spectrix D50 RAM has a "clean and elegant exterior" with simple geometric lines and a triangular RGB panel that fits with the overall design of the module. These modules have three RGB modes, including static, breathing, and comet. They can also be set to give a light show synchronized to music. Both the D60 and D50 modules are built with high-quality chips and metal heat sink for signal integrity, reliability, and stability.

Antec has just unveiled its new Katana DDR4 memory, which the company designed with the inspiration of a Japanese Samurai sword and its blade.

The new Antec Katana DDR4 memory has a slick style with some not-so-over-the-top RGB lighting at the top, with Eric Chen, the Vice President of Antec, explaining: "With our Katana memory modules, Antec aims at enthusiasts buying their stylish gaming cases and looking to add stylish designed components by the same brand".

Chen continues: "Katana shows off a metallic shine on the silver lighting bar, while, lit up, Katana glows with soft and harmonious light effects". Antec took home a 2019 iF DESIGN AWARD for its design on the Katana DDR4 RAM. You will have RGB lighting control of the Antec Katana DDR4 memory with ASUS Aura Sync, MSI Mystic Light, and ASRock Polychrome Sync.

CES 2020 - Micron took the time at CES 2020 in the first few days of the new decade, to announce that it had started sampling next-gen DDR5 SDRAM.

The new DDR5 RAM is headed to data centers first, where it will provide a huge doubling in the data rate over previous-gen DDR4 -- all the while, DDR5 will use less power, have improved voltage margins, reduced BOM costs, and more. The new Micron DDR5 ECC DIMMs are designed for server workloads, offering up to 85% more performance over DDR4 RAM.

Micron hasn't talked about consumer DDR5 modules just yet, but both Intel and AMD have no DDR5-supported technology just yet. Intel will have DDR5 support on its new Sapphire Rapids data center CPUs in 2021, but for now -- DDR5 is but a dream for us gamers.

ADATA is about to step into a few different markets in the PC business at CES 2020, with a new 15.6-inch gaming laptop, full gaming PCs, and a new 27-inch gaming monitor.

The new ADATA XPG Photon gaming monitor uses a 27-inch IPS panel with Vivid Color Eye-Safe Display technology from PixelDisplay Inc -- the first-ever in a gaming monitor. ADATA says that this new technology will reduce eye strain for those late-night gaming sessions.

This technology eliminates blue light but does so without washing out all of the colors, using film, or using blue-blocking glasses. ADATA will provide the ability for XPG Photon gaming monitor owns to switch between the wide-color gamut during the day, and then switch over during the night.

AMD and Intel both unveiled their new HEDT processors and respective platforms, with our review on AMD's new third-gen Ryzen Threadripper 3970X right here and Intel's new Core i9-10980XE processor here. But you'll need a bunch of new RAM, right? That's where our friends at G.SKILL come in.

G.SKILL has just announced the latest in their ever-growing family of high-performance, quad-channel, ultra-capacity DDR4 RAM kits which range up to a huge 256GB for the new TRX40 and X299 motherboards. The new 256GB options come in 2666MHz, 3200MHz, and 3600MHz for AMD's new TRX40 platform while you'll be able to go up to 3800MHz and even 4000MHz with Intel and X299.

The huge 256GB kits are offered with 8 x 32GB DIMMs, but they don't have the same low latencies as the 64GB kits. You can grab yourself G.SKILL's new 256GB of DDR4 for HEDT platforms with the DDR4-3200 kit coming in at CL16-18-18-38 and 1.35V in 256GB, or the DDR4-3600 kit at CL18-22-22-42 and 1.35V.

Corsair probably surprised a lot of people today when they unveiled their new Vengeance LPX RAM kit rated to run at 5000MHz.

For those interested, as of now, the kit is listed on the Corsair webpage at $1,224.99 which is about 4.08MHz per dollar, or we can look at it conversely at $75 dollars per gigabyte of RAM. Now I say this in jest as I know the trouble a memory manufacturer goes through to tightly screen IC's and come up with enough choice units to validate these sorts of speeds.

There are some other considerations to be had as well, you are going to want to check with Corsair and closely pick through their validated board list to ensure you are pairing this sort of kit properly. When considering a uber high-speed memory kit, you must remember that there is a large amount of moving parts in play that can cause hang-ups along the way. CPU IMC quality is part of it.

G.SKILL today announced its new 32GB single DIMMs or memory modules. The new 32GB DIMMs allow for much higher memory density for your PC and more overhead for heavy task loading. As games and photoshop, along with other conventional usage models, increase, the need for more memory starts to become apparent. Let us not even get into the realm of Google chrome, and the fact that you would probably never need to close a tab ever again.

G.SKILL, however, is not merely releasing some low-speed kits to appease the masses; as you can see from the chart above, they have kits ranging up to 256GB at 3200MHz and up to 4000MHz at 128GB. This needless to say is insane speed but is possible with the right platform and some luck in your IMC. These new kits up to 4 DIMMs can be applicable for Ryzen 3000 platforms, but do be aware that with the extra stress of higher density DIMMs, some tuning may be required if your IMC is not playing nice with them. Also, we all know that Threadripper 3000 is coming soon, and so the kits you see demonstrated on X299 at up to 256GB will likely slot right over to working on the new better memory controller packaged on all Zen 2 chips thus far.

The G.SKILL supplied shot shows a Ryzen 9 3900X with a two-stick kit on an X570 Godlike from MSI. The board is running at full DDR4 3800 with 1:1 FCLK at 64GB (2x32GB) with CL18 and command rate 1. This in itself is impressive, and of course, YMMV, but with what we have seen on Ryzen 3000 up to now, this could be an easy feat to pull off.

G.SKILL has been pushing the limits with memory for a long time now. With Ryzen, the memory frequency and related performance have always been a bit limited.

With AMD's Ryzen 3000 series, the memory speed has been unlocked in a significant way. G.SKILL has released a kit with 3800MHz speed and CL14-16-16-36 in a 16GB kit.

Tested on an MSI X570 Godlike, we can see the sticks running at their full potential achieving AIDA64 bandwidth numbers of 56-58GB/s, respectively. This is accomplished by G.SKILL testing the limitation of the Ryzen 3000 platform and finding where the Infinity Fabric (FCLK) and memory speed can run 1:1 with full stability. Officially, AMD states that past 3600-3733 the boards will drop from 1:1 to 1:2. This means the FCLK runs at half of your memory speed, which can severely impact performance or at the very least, inducing a latency penalty.

We kinda knew it was coming but now it is here: DRAM prices have spiked by 20% from the Toshiba factory power outages and also fueled by the on-going trade issues between Japan and South Korea.

This will cause the price of DRAM used in most consumer PCs in the form of RAM, graphce cards, RAM for smartphones and much more will slowly increase. It'll happen as stock is depleted, and then some of it will be marked up along the supply chain before it gets into your hands. The tightly knit memory industry is co-dependant on one another, with Asia being a hotspot for DRAM with South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. DRAMeXchange reports that the spot-pricing of 8-gigabit DDR4 is up 14.6% week-over-week, and up a large 23% as of July 5.

Japan is flexing its muscles with regulatory moves, but industry sources have said that if the regulatory moves affect production of DRAM at Samsung Eletronics and SK Hynix -- two South Korean chip titans -- "memory prices could skyrocket".

Computex 2019 - Where do I even begin with ADATA, as it really felt like 'alright this has to be it' when I'm being walked around their gigantic booth in the halls of Nangang... but it kept going. Quality product to quality product, most blinged out with RGBs and an amazing gaming pod that I need want to take home.

Gaming on a super-ultra-wide gaming monitor, in a game that ADATA reached out to the developer for to get their pod into the game so it felt more lifelike. The gaming desk is adjustable once you get into the pod, and pushes up closer to the screen when not needed. If that pod had been moving with the pod in the game, I would not have gotten any other work done as I would've planted myself there for the entire day.

As you can see a gaming RIG is secured at the back of the gaming pod, blinged out with some ADATA RGB-infused cooling and DDR4 RAM.

Computex 2019 - Another visit in the Grand Hyatt this year was Kingston who alongside its HyperX brand were both showing off some great new products, and some much more bling than others.

First we'll start with the the DC1000M, a new PCIe NVMe Gen 3x4 2.5-inch SSD that comes in a U.2 interface and capacities between 960GB and 7.68TB. Kingston is also offering hardware-based power fail protection on the DC1000M series SSDs, too.

Kingston was also showing off its A2000 series, which is a PCIe NVMe Gen 3x4 M.2 SSD that arrives with up to 1TB of flash, and is powered by Intel's 3D TLC 64-layer NAND flash. Kingston is promising up to 1500MB/sec write and 2000MB/sec read speeds.

ADATA has just smashed the previous DDR4 speed record by Kingston and its HyperX Predator RAM, with ADATA's in-house XPG Overclocking Lab (XOCL) using its new Spectrix D60G DDR4 RGB RAM to reach the dizzying heights of 5634.1MHz.

A single 8GB stick of Spectrix D60G was used on an MSI MPG X390I Gaming Edge AC Mini-ITX motherboard and an Intel Core i9-9900K, with LN2 cooling keeping the highly-overclocked DDR4 RAM cool. The timings were loose, with the team stretching them out to CL 31-31-31-46 3T, with no voltage numbers released but with LN2 keeping the RAM cool as well as having the DDR4 chips clocked at that speed, I'd say it was pretty damn high.

The ADATA Spectrix D60G comes at a stock 4133MHz so the OC all the way to 5634MHz is mighty impressive, and using LN2 cooling is even more insane. The RAM overclocking game is a crazy one, with ADATA taking the reigns this close to Computex 2019 is a big deal.

Intel just released its monster new Xeon W-3175X processor (a huge 28C/56T beast that we reviewed here) but what are you going to do about a kit of RAM? That's where G.SKILL steps in with its just-announced 6-channel Trident Z Royal kit of memory that comes in a variety of different capacities.

G.SKILL's awesome Trident Z Royal RAM looks amazing in any PC but in a new 28C/56T beast from Intel it'd look even better. The company is offering the new kits in various different capacities that include DDR4-3200 speeds with lower latencies (14-14-14-34 and 16-18-18-38) in 48GB, 96GB, and 192GB kits. If you want the high-end stuff, G.SKILL also has a faster 192GB kit of DDR4-4000 with 17-18-18-38 timings, but it's also available in 48GB and 96GB kits.