I'M Intelligent Memory 16GB DDR3 UDIMM Memory Review

TweakTown's Rating: 96%

The Bottom Line

I'M Intelligent Memory has taken the lead in advanced memory technology to expand memory capacities on Intel Atom C2000 series 'Avoton' and Atom E3800 'Baytrail-I' processor and HP Moonshot platforms.

12

Today in the lab, we have been testing some very interesting memory kits by I'M Intelligent Memory. The kits we will be looking at are noteworthy in that they increase memory capacity by being creative in how they take advantage of a limitation in certain Intel platforms.

The Intel Atom C2000 series 'Avoton' and Atom E3800 'Baytrail-I' processors were limited by only being able to use 8GB memory modules and limited number of slots to populate. This created problems for some systems that might require more memory. When we tested the ASUS P9A-I-C2550-SAS-4L server motherboard, we were limited to only two memory slots and a capacity of 16GB of RAM. This may not be enough for some applications.

In 2013, these RAM capacities did not exist for these memory modules as only 4 Gigabit chips existed. I'M Intelligent Memory needed to find a way to combine two 4 Gigabit chips into an 8 Gigabit module, which they were able to do. This was no simple task, as they would need to run perfectly in parallel, match every signal timing by the picosecond. These new modules worked fine on just about all platforms, except for Intel platforms. Intel has routines in their MRC, which are like:

• If SPD Byte 4 = 2, then configure the CPU for 1 Gigabit Chips on the module
• If SPD Byte 4 = 3, then configure the CPU for 2 Gigabit Chips on the module
• If SPD Byte 4 = 4, then configure the CPU for 4 Gigabit Chips on the module

They are just missing "If SPD Byte 4 = 5, then configure the CPU for 8 Gigabit Chips on the module", thus the system hangs immediately. A 16GB unbuffered DIMM or SO-DIMM required them to be made of 8Gbit components, there is no way around this. In the end, I'M Intelligent Memory was able to figure all this out, get 4 Gigabit chips to work in 8 Gigabit mode and come up with a new 8 Gigabit module.

With the 16GB memory sticks in hand several manufacturers were able to bypass this limitation and include support in BIOS updates, so now these 16GB memory sticks are able to work just fine on these platforms. Here is a current list of platforms that will use these new sticks:

1) Order-Code: IMM2G72D3LSOD8AG-B15E 16GB DDR3L SO-DIMM with ECC (2Gx72), 1.35V/1.5V, 204 Pin, DDR3-1333. Fits into:

• Supermicro A1SAi-2750F, A1SAi-2550F, A1SRi-2758F, A1SRi-2558F
• HP Moonshot Cartridges m700 (based on AMD X2150), m300 (based on Avoton C2000)
• Any boards based on Intel Baytrail-I E3800 series processors with sockets for ECC SO-DIMMs

2) Order-Code: IMM2G72D3LDUD8AG-B15E 16GB DDR3L UDIMM with ECC (2Gx72), 1.35V/1.5V, 240 Pin, DDR3-1333. Fits into:

• Supermicro A1SAM-2750F, A1SAM-2550F, A1SRM-2758F, A1SRM-2558F, A1SA7-2750F
• ASRock C2750D4I, C2550D4I
• ASUS P9A-I/C2550/4L, P9A-I/C2550/SAS/4L, P9A-I/C2750/SAS/4L
• ASUS X79 Deluxe (min. BIOS 0901)
• ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition (min. BIOS 0801)
• ASUS P9X79 Deluxe, P9X79 Pro, P9X79 LE, P9X79 Sabertooth X79 (BIOS 4801)
• Any boards based on Intel Baytrail-I E3800 series processors with sockets for ECC UDIMMs

3) Order-Code: IMM2G64D3LDUD8AG-B15E 16GB DDR3L UDIMM (2Gx64), 1.35V/1.5V, 240 Pin, DDR3-1333, NON-ECC. Fits into:

• ASRock C2750D4I, C2550D4I
• Any boards based on Intel Baytrail-I E3800 series processors with sockets for Non-ECC UDIMMs

4) Order-Code: IMM2G64D3LSOD8AG-B15E 16GB DDR3L SO-DIMM (2Gx64), 1.35V/1.5V, 204 Pin, DDR3-1333, NON-ECC. Fits into:

• Any boards based on Intel Baytrail-I E3800 series processors with sockets for Non-ECC SO-DIMMs

5) Order-Code: IMM2G72D3LDVD8AG-B15E 16GB DDR3L UDIMM with ECC (2Gx72), Very Low Profile (VLP), 1.35V/1.5V, 240 Pin, DDR3-1333. Fits into:

• Supermicro A1SA2-2750F, A1SAM-2750F, A1SAM-2550F, A1SRM-2758F, A1SRM-2558F, A1SA7-2750F
• ASRock C2750D4I, C2550D4I
• ASUS P9A-I/C2550/4L, P9A-I/C2550/SAS/4L, P9A-I/C2750/SAS/4L
• ASUS X79 Deluxe (min. BIOS 0901)
• ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition (min. BIOS 0801)
• ASUS P9X79 Deluxe, P9X79 Pro, P9X79 LE, P9X79 Sabertooth X79 (BIOS 4801)

Let us look at the set of I'M Intelligent Memory 16GB DDR3 ECC UDIMM's set to us for review.

12

Here we get a look at the back and front of the I'M Intelligent Memory 16GB DDR3 ECC UDIMM's provided to us for these tests.

12

We would like to thank I'M Intelligent Memory, ASRock Rack, SanDisk, Thermaltake, PassMark Software, AIDA64 and Primate Labs - Geekbench for their support in providing parts for our test system.

For our testing, we will be using I'M Intelligent Memory 16GB DDR3 ECC UDIMM's sticks in different combinations. We will go by the preferred memory setup guide for optimal performance for the ASROCK C2550D4I Server Motherboard.

12

Here we see the preferred memory setup guide for optimal performance for the ASROCK C2550D4I Server Motherboard. The memory configurations that we will be testing today are simple for the ASROCK C2550D4I. There are only four slots, two are blue and two are white.

12

The slots marked in red are for two memory sticks. These slots are colored blue on the motherboard. Using these two slots, it will give us a capacity of 32GB of ECC UDIMM's.

12

The slots marked in red are for four memory stick configurations. This will give us the maximum amount of memory at 64GB of ECC UDIMM's.

12

The CPU used on the ASROCK C2550D4I Server Motherboard is an Intel Atom C2550 which gives us 4 core to run on our tests. The I'M Intelligent Memory 16GB DDR3 ECC UDIMM's will show up rated as 9-9-9-24 1T @ 1333MHz. Let us get started with AIDA64 Memory test to see where we stand.

12

We can see by the test results that the 2 and 4 memory stick configurations are about equal in bandwidth. Both of those tests memory is running in dual channel mode. With 4 sticks of memory, we see the highest bandwidth numbers, memory is running at 1333 MT/s on these tests. There is no difference in these two setups with the I'M Intelligent Memory 16GB DDR3 ECC DIMM's and performance is right where we would expect them to be.

12

Just like in ADIA Memory test, Passmark is showing these two setups are equal in performance.

12

Here we see all single-core results are about equal. In this test, memory capacity and channel mode plays no significant role as only one core is used and memory is able to keep up with this without issues.

12

When we move to multi-core tests, we see results are about equal and almost double the performance of the single channel tests.

The Intel Atom C2000 series 'Avoton' and Atom E3800 'Baytrail-I' processor platforms can limit the amount of memory available to your applications. I'M Intelligent Memory is a creative company coming up with cutting edge memory solutions with the 16GB DDR3 ECC UDIMM's for these platforms.

12

Advanced systems as HP's Moonshot can take full advantage of I'M Intelligent Memory solutions to expand limited memory slots and expand that to double the capacity for memory hungry applications. Not only do I'M Intelligent Memory solutions work for Intel Atom C2000 series 'Avoton' and Atom E3800 'Baytrail-I' processor platforms, they also work on AMD platforms. We were very happy to have capacity limitations expanded on our test bed and these memory kits showed excellent performance.