GIGABYTE IRAM ($80 Hardware RAMDISK) REVIEW/BENCHMARK TRANSLATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
S

SupremeServer

Member
Apr 21, 2005
68
0
0
If you are chinese then go to this url for the Gigabyte IRAM review
http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/iramdisk-gbt-1.htm

If you can't read chinese, you can still go there to check out the pictures, I'll do the translation on the critical part of the review to point out some mistake that was made by Anandtech and Tomshardware's IRAM intro, I have no time to do a full translation of that review but if you have any questions after you finish reading this translation, you can make a reply and I'll see if I can find the answer to your question from that review and give you an update:

AT -> http://www.hkepc.com/hwdb/iramdisk-gbt-1.htm

Chinese: ??????Gigabyte i-RAM

English: Worldwide Exclusive Review on Gigabyte i-RAM (they are the only one who made a review of IRAM and I think it seems to be true cuz even Anandtech and Tomshareware don't even have a review on it yet)

Chinese: Gigabyte i-RAM??4?180Pins?DIMM?,??2.5V?DDR?????,?????8GB??????,??????????????????????4GB
???,??Gigabyte i-RAM?????????????????????????,?????????????????????,????DDR400???? DDR266???????????!??,???????????????????,????????,????????Gigabyte i-RAM?,??????83.7MHz?DDR167.4.?????,???????????????????????????

English: Gigabyte IRAM has 4x DDR1 DIMM slot, support 2.5v DDR memory, max memory capacity of 8GB (that's 4x2GB, Anandtech said the max is 4GB), this kinda memory capacity is way more than any standard desktop machine that only has 4GB max memory capacity. Furthermore, Gigabyte also support memory with different size, different brand and different speed with no compatibility problem. Alot of reader get confused and asked "if they use DDR400 instead of DDR266 on IRAM, would it be faster?". The answer is NO, it doesn't matter what speed of DDR you use, they will all have the same performance because IRAM is only clocked at 83.7MHz/DDR167.4 (Anandtech said it's 100MHz/DDR200), by downclock the DDR memory to this speed it will decrease latency and increase stability.


Benchmark - Windows Boot UP
Gigabyte i-RAM: 6.42s

Seagate 80GB 7200rpm 8MB Cache: 13.17s


Benchmark - PCMark 04
Gigabyte i-RAM:
HDD Score: 57699
XP Startup: 102.193 MB/s
Application Loading: 100.503 MB/s
File Copying: 118.981 MB/s
General HDD Usage: 90.620 MB/s

Seagate 80GB 7200rpm 8MB Cache:
HDD Score: 4122
XP Startup: 7.348 MB/s
Application Loading: 5.918 MB/s
File Copying: 31.152 MB/s
General HDD Usage: 4.915 MB/s


Benchmark - Sandra 2005
Gigabyte i-RAM:
Drive Index: 132 MB/s
Buffered Read: 133 MB/s
Sequential Read: 133 MB/s
Random Read: 133 MB/s
Buffered Write: 126 MB/s
Sequential Write: 127 MB/s
Random Read: 127 MB/s
Average Random Access: -

Seagate 80GB 7200rpm 8MB Cache:
Drive Index: 47 MB/s
Buffered Read: 40 MB/s
Sequential Read: 52 MB/s
Random Read: 38 MB/s
Buffered Write: 97 MB/s
Sequential Write: 54 MB/s
Random Read: 38 MB/s
Average Random Access: 8ms


Benchmark - Winbench 99
Gigabyte i-RAM:
Overall: 191000 KB/s
AVS/Express 3.4: 213000 KB/s
FrontPage 98: 409000 KB/s
MicroStation SE: 240000 KB/s
PhotoShop 4.0: 94500 KB/s
Premiere 4.2: 156000 KB/s
Sound Forge 4.0: 261000 KB/s
Visual C++ 5.0: 224000 KB/s

Seagate 80GB 7200rpm 8MB Cache:
Overall: 35200 KB/s
AVS/Express 3.4: 32600 KB/s
FrontPage 98: 282000 KB/s
MicroStation SE: 53200 KB/s
PhotoShop 4.0: 10900 KB/s
Premiere 4.2: 41500 KB/s
Sound Forge 4.0: 81700 KB/s
Visual C++ 5.0: 55600 KB/s


Benmark - HDTach 3.0
Gigabyte i-RAM:
Burst Speed: 137.4 MB/s
Radeon Access: 0.1 ms
Average Read: 131.2MB/s

Seagate 80GB 7200rpm 8MB Cache:
Burst Speed: 99MB /s
Radeon Access: 13 ms
Average Read: 46.9MB/s

Chinese: ???

?????RAMDisk,?????????????????????,Gigabyte i-RAM??4?180Pins?DIMM?,??2.5V?DDR?????,?????8GB??????,??????????????????????4GB
???,??Gigabytei-RAM????????RamDisk?????,?????????????????,???????Gigabyte?i-RAM????,?????????
?????????????Database?BT??(RAM???????Bad Sector)???,???????????

????Gigabyte????iRAM??????,????????????,?????????,??????? 80-100??(?????)???????2006??????DDR2??,???????????DDR?????iRAM,????????

English: Conclusion:

With Ramdisk as powerful as IRAM, the reviewers wanted to keep the IRAM for themselves so bad while doing the testing, Gigabyte IRAM have got rid of all weakness that you would expect from a traditional Ramdisk (software based), it has great performance and very safe to use, we would like to thank Gigabyte for making this product, alot of animator, database server and BT users (RAM won't get Bad Sectors like harddrive) will love IRAM, this product has great future.

We've been informed by Gigabyte saying that they are still making updates to their IRAM and the final product won't be out for awhile so we all have to wait patiently for now, the cost of the IRAM is about $80~100USD (does not include memory, Anandtech and Tomshareware said it's $60) and the price of this product is very fair, it will be a DDR2 era by year 2006 so alot of people will have some spare DDR1 memory left to use with IRAM so their DDR1 won't be wasted.
==========================================================
OK, HERE'S MY OWN CONCLUSION AND THOUGHTS ABOUT RAMDISK

About 2 years ago, I did a benchmark with Western Digital 8MB cache hard drive VS PC2100 DDR system memory using software Ramdisk, depends on the filesize, my system memory is 100~1000 times faster than my harddrive, the smaller the the file size the slower your hard drive is but with RAM it doesn't really slow down that much so it's very good for SQL database, I did a query on MySQL and it took almost a minute to finish on harddrive but it took less than 1 sec to finish on my system memory, when I do photoshop filtering effect on an image it took over 20 seconds to finish on my hard drive but it loads instantly on Ramdisk.

Software based Ramdisk is still good, because you can use your system memory that offer more speed and bandwidth compare to Gigabyte IRAM, the only bad part about software based Ramdisk is that it's driver based so you can't boot Windows on it, it make a backup of drive into image file to hard drive before your Windows shutdown then restore the drive image back to Ramdisk when Windows bootup.

Most of you might have heard of this company http://www.cenatek.com/ they made hardware based Ramdisk very simular to Gigabyte IRAM but they charge you over a thousand dollar for a card and that's a rip off compare to Gigabyte's IRAM, I think that's the main reason they unlinked their support forum from their website so they don't get flamed by people, you can still get the url to their support forum by searching google and here's the url:
http://forums.cenatek.com/ubb/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

http://www.superspeed.com is a software based Ramdisk but they are also a ripoff just like Cenatek, they charge you hundreds of dollars for the Ramdisk software when you can get a simular product for only $9.99, superspeed charge you money for having different version of Windows so if you buy their WinXP version then you can't use it if you upgrade to Windows 2003 and you have to pay them again, with Ramdisk Enterprise for only $9.99 it's compatible with all version of Windows.

I am the primary distributor of Ramdisk Enterprise ($9.99 per license), if you are interested in software based RAMDisk feel free to contact me at service@duoservers.us
 
S

SupremeServer

Member
Apr 21, 2005
68
0
0
Didn't know there's a simular thread already, but my thread is not exactly the same as the other one, my translation is abit more detailed and accurate than the other, here's an update from Gigabyte, it seems like there's a delay on the IRAM release date, here's the response from gigabyte when I email them about the exact release date of IRAM:

Answer - 242299
Answer : Dear Customer,

Thank you for your interest in the I-RAM product. I can not comment further on detailed specification since this product has not been officially announced. It will be released in early August. Please check our website for the latest news and updates.

Thank you for using Gigabyte products
Question - 242299

From : Tom [ xxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com ]
Sent : 2005/7/14 04:51
Question : Hi, can you tell me the exact release date for gigabyte iram? I want to buy it and I'm waiting impatiently...
Click to expand...

So now it's "Early August" instead of July, I hope this is for real ^_^;
 
L

Lockout

Member
Jul 11, 2004
72
0
0
I'm dying to get one of these.

Anyone know where to get 1GB sticks of low-speed DDR for cheap?
 
BFG10K

BFG10K

Lifer
Aug 14, 2000
22,709
3,002
126
One of these would be awesome for a scratch disk for gaming. Load/reload times would absolutely fly.
 
M

MobiusPizza

Platinum Member
Apr 23, 2004
2,001
0
0
Originally posted by: SupremeServer
Didn't know there's a simular thread already, but my thread is not exactly the same as the other one, my translation is abit more detailed and accurate than the other
Click to expand...

..........

I didn't do an "exact" Word-by-word translation as it would take me 2 hours.

I picked up interesting features and previously unknown facts. Anandtech readers should know simple facts already if they are keen, rendering an exact translation unecessary

But I have to say that I am a native Traditional Chinese Speaker so no way my translation is Inaccurate
 
S

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
11,641
0
76
Originally posted by: her34
why is bootup only twice as fast?
Click to expand...

Windows does a lot of other things when booting, starting various services, network, etc, that aren't disk bound.
Just look at your HD LED while booting and you'll see it "pausing" on and off.
 
S

SupremeServer

Member
Apr 21, 2005
68
0
0
To: AnnihilatorX
Your translation might be simular to the chinese counterpart but there is a point of translating word by word, because I wanted to let the readers know how reviewers felt and thought about this product.

To: her34
If the IRAM were running at DDR400 or faster without SATA 150Mbytes/s bandwidth cap, I'm sure the result would be much better, IRAM is good for storing pagefile or booting windows, but that's about it, I still prefer software based Ramdisk with system memory to store sql database files and photoshop scratch disk because it's much faster and more bandwidth.
 
RichUK

RichUK

Lifer
Feb 14, 2005
10,341
678
126
Originally posted by: Sunner
Originally posted by: her34
why is bootup only twice as fast?
Click to expand...

Windows does a lot of other things when booting, starting various services, network, etc, that aren't disk bound.
Just look at your HD LED while booting and you'll see it "pausing" on and off.
Click to expand...

very true :thumbsup:
 
P

Penth

Senior member
Mar 9, 2004
933
0
0
I don't get why they don't make it sata ii / 300MB/s. This is one application where the additional bandwidth would be readily apparent.
 
S

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
11,641
0
76
Originally posted by: her34
Originally posted by: BFG10K
why is bootup only twice as fast?
Click to expand...
Because it's not primarily disk bound.
Click to expand...

what's the bottleneck then? what would it take for 1 second bootup?
Click to expand...

Have DHCP turned on? Need time to get the IP addy, gateway info, etc.
Going through security policies.
On a domain? Contact the PDC/AD controller(s)
Look for new hardware.

Etc etc, lots of behind the scenes stuff.
If you have a Linux box around, have alook at it when it boots, it does pretty much the same things, though services will differ of course,
Difference is most Linux(Or BSD for that matter) distros will print exactly what it does.
 
G

Gannon

Senior member
Jul 29, 2004
527
0
0
What I really never understood about ramdisks, is why dont companies plan and design ramdisks around RAM a generation or two behind current ram? Usuaully older PC66/100/133 is plain old SDRAM is still many times faster then hard disks and you can get tonnes of it for fairly cheap in the used market when the next upgrade cycle hits, is it that expensive to produce older ram?
 
S

Sunbird

Golden Member
Jul 20, 2001
1,024
2
81
What Im wondering is how long it will take the IRAM to drain a average UPS dry throught the PCI slot before going to the onbaord battery?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom