Gigabyte I-Ram, finally here

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GrammatonJP

Golden Member
Feb 16, 2006
1,245
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I was referering to the 8GB DDR2 model, with the external ac adapter

Originally posted by: HO
I think this will be a better implementation. It can accomodate 8GB of RAM and uses the PCIe bus: DDR Drive



Originally posted by: batmanuel
Originally posted by: GrammatonJP
looks better but not having battery backup is a big mistake... they'll probably fix that..

unless they want you to supply the ups to it.

Did you miss the big square battery-shaped thing on the end of the board? It's a 1600 mAh backup battery.

 

dnuggett

Diamond Member
Sep 13, 2003
6,703
0
76
Originally posted by: twitchee2
2 of these with 8gb of ram in raid 0....that would be freaking fast but no where near worth the price what so ever.

What in the world would make you think setting these up in RAID 0 would make them "so freaking fast" lol?

Second, do some research folks this thing HO linked to is a joke, it's not even clsoe to hitting the shelfs, and probably never will be. The site is registered to some schlep who has another bunk site. Oh and the ddrdrive site is hosted by 1and1. It's no major company putting it out.
 
Oct 19, 2000
17,860
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I would probably buy into this is the initial purchase of the board wasn't so high. I understand the price premium at launch, but once it gets down towards $50-$75 (or a competitor's product), I'll look into it.
 

Buck Naked

Senior member
Jun 29, 2005
706
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I have thought about using 1 of these for a paging file, but someone told me that I probably wouldn't notice much. You guys think thats true?
 

Jiggz

Diamond Member
Mar 10, 2001
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Originally posted by: biostud
it needs SATA-II interface


NO, it only needs SATA 1, which is 150GB/sec. It requires a PCI to power it up. It doesn't interface with PCI instead it just gets power from the PCI and interface with a SATA-1 port. I like it but not ready for the price. At $135.00 plus $200.00 (2X1GB or 4X512MB) of rams it is a very expensive SSD (Solid State Drive), although it is cheaper than a regular SSD. I'll have to wait until the price is less than $100.00
 

GrammatonJP

Golden Member
Feb 16, 2006
1,245
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Just got mine in the mail today.. rev 1.1 not 1.2 as shown on the site... i email newegg about it.. they'll get back to me tomorrow..
 

jazzboy

Senior member
May 2, 2005
232
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I guess it might be useful if you wanted an ultra silent machine. But then I suppose you still have the problem of not very much disk space then.
 

biostud

Lifer
Feb 27, 2003
19,766
6,850
136
Originally posted by: Jiggz
Originally posted by: biostud
it needs SATA-II interface


NO, it only needs SATA 1, which is 150GB/sec. It requires a PCI to power it up. It doesn't interface with PCI instead it just gets power from the PCI and interface with a SATA-1 port. I like it but not ready for the price. At $135.00 plus $200.00 (2X1GB or 4X512MB) of rams it is a very expensive SSD (Solid State Drive), although it is cheaper than a regular SSD. I'll have to wait until the price is less than $100.00

what I meant was that it needs SATA-II to be an interesting product. :p the 150mb/s (not 150 Gb/s :Q ) SATA interfacelooks like a huge bottleneck to me, or maybe it's somewher in the controller. But surely DDR blocks shuould be able to transfer 300mb/s.
 

HO

Senior member
May 23, 2000
216
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>>Sure if you send it to 4 different address

I have three friends, don't you?
 

crispy2010

Platinum Member
Sep 18, 2004
2,419
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0
If you installed xp on this, wouldnt it load instantaniously? I had a mobile pro and the os was on ram and it was ready to use as soon as you hit the power button!
 

ProviaFan

Lifer
Mar 17, 2001
14,993
1
0
I would never buy four of something like that for an extremely overpriced amount, depending only on rebates to make the cost reasonable. Much rather would I be likely to get four sticks of 1GB DDR from Newegg for half the initial cost, and keep the $240 extra that I would have had to pay up front for other things instead over the six months that it takes rebates to process (if you ever get them back at all, that is).

Anyway, I eagerly await reports from anyone who has one of the new I-RAMs... Especially if you could install Windows on it, just to see subjectively how it
"feels" in operation. :p
 

the Chase

Golden Member
Sep 22, 2005
1,403
0
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Originally posted by: biostud
Originally posted by: Jiggz
Originally posted by: biostud
it needs SATA-II interface


NO, it only needs SATA 1, which is 150GB/sec. It requires a PCI to power it up. It doesn't interface with PCI instead it just gets power from the PCI and interface with a SATA-1 port. I like it but not ready for the price. At $135.00 plus $200.00 (2X1GB or 4X512MB) of rams it is a very expensive SSD (Solid State Drive), although it is cheaper than a regular SSD. I'll have to wait until the price is less than $100.00

what I meant was that it needs SATA-II to be an interesting product. :p the 150mb/s (not 150 Gb/s :Q ) SATA interfacelooks like a huge bottleneck to me, or maybe it's somewher in the controller. But surely DDR blocks shuould be able to transfer 300mb/s.

Yeah that's pretty limiting for this. Did the other card linked to on the first page of this thread communicate via the PCIe X1 port instead of a SATA port? What's the limit for the PCIe lanes again?
 

TheSlamma

Diamond Member
Sep 6, 2005
7,625
5
81
I remember having a RAM drive and putting my games and other software in it and playing off that, load times were great, but I wouldn't spend what this costs to get a fast load time. I'll save that money for the vid card.
 

ViRGE

Elite Member, Moderator Emeritus
Oct 9, 1999
31,516
167
106
Originally posted by: GrammatonJP
Just got mine in the mail today.. rev 1.1 not 1.2 as shown on the site... i email newegg about it.. they'll get back to me tomorrow..
What's the difference?
 

GrammatonJP

Golden Member
Feb 16, 2006
1,245
0
0
1.2 has a 4 level led battery capacity 1.1 does not..

other than that.. its pretty much the same..
 

EODetroit

Member
Oct 20, 2004
48
0
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Here's a Google cache of the page back when the various version differences were described (dunno why they took it down):

http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:uT...K&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=30&lr=lang_en

It doesn't look like much changes from 1.1 > 1.2 > 1.3. Unless there's firmware improvements that aren't listed, they are pretty much the same for most people.

As for the memory, I hope once people get these, they post which memory they get to work and which doesn't. Gigabyte has a list of known-compatible memory here: http://www.gigabyte.com.sg/Support/Peri...Q_Model.aspx?FAQID=4868&ProductID=2076

but it would be nice to know if some cheaper stuff worked too. The recommended 1 gig Kingstons are $81 each, $160 if you get a pair. The other 1gig modules they have listed I can't actually find for sale.

So to buy and fully populate 4 gigs into one of these, you're looking at around $450, minimally.