EXISTS? M/B that takes > 4 (> 8GBy) DDR2 *UNBUFFERED* > 4 DIMMS?

QuixoticOne

Golden Member
Nov 4, 2005
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I've never seen one, but I'm really wondering if there are
motherboards (consumer or low cost server) that can take more than
quantity 4 DDR2 common unbuffered 240 pin DIMMs?

Or is it known that any forthcoming chipsets / motherboards
will be able to take such a larger quantity of commodity
"desktop PC" 2GB DDR2 unbuffered, non-registered, non-ECC DIMMS?

I'd be glad to put 16GB or 32GB of 2GB DIMMs in such a system
if it existed, but it's completely not worth it financially if I have
to pay for ECC / registered / FB-DIMMS given the current costs
of the commodity unbuffered unregistered DDR2 DIMMs.

Given the cost of FB-DIMM or registered DIMMs I might as well just
build 2-4 C2D systems with 8GBy each rather than go with memory
that costs 2x or more as much in such quantity.

I'm sure ECC has its reliability benefits, but it's hard to argue with
$25/GBy prices for memory that works well enough for every
desktop PC out there.

Actually what they ought to have done is made COMMON desktop
PCs ALSO take only ECC/registered DIMMs given that 2-8GB is now typical
for the desktop which is really no different in quantity than most servers,
then it'd be cheap memory for everyone due to the high production volume. Sigh.

 

thejez

Member
Mar 16, 2000
110
0
0
Originally posted by: QuixoticOne
I've never seen one, but I'm really wondering if there are
motherboards (consumer or low cost server) that can take more than
quantity 4 DDR2 common unbuffered 240 pin DIMMs?

Or is it known that any forthcoming chipsets / motherboards
will be able to take such a larger quantity of commodity
"desktop PC" 2GB DDR2 unbuffered, non-registered, non-ECC DIMMS?

I'd be glad to put 16GB or 32GB of 2GB DIMMs in such a system
if it existed, but it's completely not worth it financially if I have
to pay for ECC / registered / FB-DIMMS given the current costs
of the commodity unbuffered unregistered DDR2 DIMMs.

Given the cost of FB-DIMM or registered DIMMs I might as well just
build 2-4 C2D systems with 8GBy each rather than go with memory
that costs 2x or more as much in such quantity.

I'm sure ECC has its reliability benefits, but it's hard to argue with
$25/GBy prices for memory that works well enough for every
desktop PC out there.

Actually what they ought to have done is made COMMON desktop
PCs ALSO take only ECC/registered DIMMs given that 2-8GB is now typical
for the desktop which is really no different in quantity than most servers,
then it'd be cheap memory for everyone due to the high production volume. Sigh.


this is a really odd question... what possible reason do you have for needing >8GB of RAM where you dont want the ram to be on a server platform? If your running a server its best to run on server hardware...
 

QuixoticOne

Golden Member
Nov 4, 2005
1,855
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Originally posted by: thejez
this is a really odd question... what possible reason do you have for needing >8GB of RAM where you dont want the ram to be on a server platform? If your running a server its best to run on server hardware...


Advanced multimedia / workstation type "PC" tasks.

Video processing / editing, 3D CAD modeling,
data acquisition / analysis of multi-gigabyte data sets etc.

Stuff that's very "individual" / hobby oriented that's appropriate for a desktop PC,
but which you just couldn't do effectively on PCs in past years compared to
$20,000 CAD / imaging / video workstations, mainframes, etc.

Now the CPU performance/price, disk capacity/price, and memory
capacity/price is no limitation, it's just the motherboard limitations that
are in the way.

We've got $200ish terabyte personal use disk drives (very appropriate
for video, et. al.), but 8GB RAM is still rather anemic.

Before MPEG compression, for instance, the digital video for even a single DVD or
HD-DVD would be 40 to 200 Gigabytes, easily, and you'd certainly want
fast random access to it all for editing, encoding, etc.

My needs aren't in the realm of studio server capacity / quality, but certainly
at least 16GB - 32GB is a very reasonable target considering it'd now cost less
than 4GB did just a couple of years ago.

The registered DIMM motherboards just ruin the price effectiveness of it though.
 

Arcanedeath

Platinum Member
Jan 29, 2000
2,822
1
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Sadly 8gb is the max most intel desktop boards take, some Am2 boards are rated for 16gb w/ only 4 slots but no one makes unbuffered 4gb ddr 2 dimms at a reaonsable cost so your best bet is just just live w/ 8gb w/ 4x 2gb dimms