Any 1155 boards with 6+ memory sockets?

[jsedlak]

I have a Q6600 machine that is hitting 8gb with ease now and I am looking at SB for a possible upgrade. The problem is that like 775, the 1155 boards seem to support only 4 slots of ram. With kits only coming in a max of 4x4, I have a "low" ceiling of 16gb.

Are there any boards that have 6 or 8 slots for SB?

Which begs the question, what will 2011 support?

I would like to achieve anything at or above 24gb.

 

[Diogenes2]

Only 4 slots for 1155..

 

[Ross Ridge]

Are there any boards that have 6 or 8 slots for SB?

Which begs the question, what will 2011 support?

I would like to achieve anything at or above 24gb.

It's a limitation of the CPU (and socket I guess). Current Sandy Bridge processors are limitted to 4 DIMMs (per CPU socket). According to Wikipedia, later server models should support up to 12 DIMMs per socket, and there should be a high-end desktop model that'll support 6 DIMMs.

btw. You need at least Windows XP/Vista/7 Professional to use more than 16GB of RAM.

 

[Patmage]

Well if you are willing to pay for it you could get 4x8gb. Though it is harder to find 16gb or 32gb kits. I know newegg doesn't sell any. Crucial as well as other manufactures probably sell them straight from their sites though. Thats is probably going to run you at least $1200 though. Most of the 1155 boards support 32gb as their max. I'm not sure if we will ever see a 1155 consumer board with 6 slots though. Newegg has 122 1156 boards and only 1 has 6 slots, there just isn't that much demand for consumers that will spend more on memory then they will on the cpu.

You might have better luck when the 1155 socket server boards start to hit the market.

I'm curious myself as to how many sockets the mainstream 2011 boards will have. Having support for quad channel memory would suggest 8 sockets, but man that is a lot of board space to devote to memory.

 

[Patmage]

It's a limitation of the CPU (and socket I guess). Current Sandy Bridge processors are limitted to 4 DIMMs (per CPU socket). According to Wikipedia, later server models should support up to 12 DIMMs per socket, and there should be a high-end desktop model that'll support 6 DIMMs.

btw. You need at least Windows XP/Vista/7 Professional to use more than 16GB of RAM.

There are ways to get around this. Like what ASUS did with http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131648. It is just a rare setup as there are probably only a handful of people that will ever even use 16gb that are in the market for a $250ish cpu.

 

[Diogenes2]

I don't think that board supports SandyB..

 

[Ross Ridge]

There are ways to get around this. Like what ASUS did with http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131648. It is just a rare setup as there are probably only a handful of people that will ever even use 16gb that are in the market for a $250ish cpu.

Unfortunately the ASUS P7F7-E is still only limited 16MB of RAM. Memory limitiations of the CPU's memory controller are pretty hard to work around, in addition to just not having the pins to support more ranks of RAM, the memory controller may only going to have as many bits in its addressing logic as it needs to handle the advertised max capacitity.

Fortunately the advertised max capactity of current Sandy Bridge CPUs is 32GB, so a solution like used on the ASUS PF7-E and at least four single ranked 4GB DIMMs could work.

 

[Patmage]

I don't think that board supports SandyB..

I realize that. It is a 1156 socket board designed for Lynnfield Xeons. I only mentioned it to show that it wouldn't be impossible to see a 1155 socket board with 6 ram sockets. It just isn't very likely. Though with Sandy Bridge having a max listed memory support of 32gb and the highest common dimm size is 4gb, it could be possible.

 

[Diogenes2]

I don't see how ( SB could have six DIMMS ) , with a dual channel memory controller..

 

[Patmage]

I don't see how ( SB could have six DIMMS ) , with a dual channel memory controller..

By doing the exact same thing as the ASUS P7F7-E. It also only has a dual channel memory controller.

 

[Ross Ridge]

I don't see how ( SB could have six DIMMS ) , with a dual channel memory controller..

For each of the two channels the CPU has four chip select lines, one for each of the 8 ranks of memory total the CPU supports. Normally two chip select lines are wired to each of the standard four DIMM slots, allowing them to be populated with either single or dual rank DIMMs. If instead the motherboard wires only one chip select line to four of the slots, it can have a total six slots. Two of the DIMM slots, one for each channel, can support single or dual rank DIMMs, while the remaining four, two for each channel, can only support single rank DIMMs. Either way you're still limited to 8 total ranks of memory.

Single and dual rank DIMMs are often called single and dual sided DIMMs, but that's misleading. Chips can be placed on the DIMM however the manufacture chooses, so having chips only one side or both doesn't actually indicate whether the DIMM is single or dual rank.

 

[Diogenes2]

Thanks for the info..
What possible combinations of RAM could you have that would be greater than 16GB ?
What capacity of single rank DIMS are easily available ?

 

[jsedlak]

Thanks for the info. It sounds like I will be waiting for 2011 and then either buying that, or going for a 1366 setup.

The limitations on these products seems fairly arbitrary. Part of the reason for moving to 64bit is that the limits on ram are increased substantially. Seems silly if they limited so quickly by the motherboards and cpus. Btw, I am running 2008R2.

The quad channel scares me since 8 slots is a lot for an ATX board. It actually has surprised me how standard the 6 slots were on the 1366 boards. More surprising are the dual 1366 boards that still have 6 or more slots. I feel that my 775 board is crammed as it is now.

I am also not willing to pay through the nose for 8gb sticks of dual channel. At that point I might was well get a prebuilt server, or go crazy and purchase a dual 1366 system and lots of ddr3.

 

[MrTransistorm]

You are forgetting that s1155 is a mainstream platform. If you really need that much memory, then you are not the target market.

The vast majority of s1155 consumers would probably have no use for enthusiast/workstation-level features. They add too much cost with minuscule benefit for mainstream use. From what I've seen, most people with SB builds are sticking with 4 GB. Fewer are using 8 GB. I've only seen two using 16 GB.

Also, since you are running a server OS, you would probably benefit from the extra bandwidth from having 3 or more channels (in addition to more capacity).

 

[Ross Ridge]

What possible combinations of RAM could you have that would be greater than 16GB ?
What capacity of single rank DIMS are easily available ?

I think 24GB and 32GB would be the main ones, though at least theory I think you could have all sorts of oddball configurations like 17GB.

I have no clue on availabilty but I expect a 4GB single rank DIMM would be very expensive if generally available at all.

 

[Ross Ridge]

The limitations on these products seems fairly arbitrary. Part of the reason for moving to 64bit is that the limits on ram are increased substantially. Seems silly if they limited so quickly by the motherboards and cpus. Btw, I am running 2008R2.

I figured that probably wasn't a problem, but memory has gotten so cheap, 16G is less than $200, that I figure people are soon going to start unexpectedly running into the 16G limit of the "home" versions of Windows. I think Intel and Microsoft may have missed the ball by not allowing for more memory in their mainstream consumer products. While not a lot of people need more than 4G of RAM let alone 16G, it's easily affordable. Less than an upgrade copy of Windows 7 Professional and much less than the high-end desktop CPU that can support it.