How long before home computers have 1 TB of RAM?

[Chrono]

Unless you're running some sorta server... I don't think anything more than 8GB is needed nowadays.

 

[child of wonder]

No they're not. You can get them for $50 each. When IB comes out I think most high end boards will be using 4x8 quad channel or 32GB total. If you are rich you can buy 16GB modules right now and sport 64GB when IB is released.

16gb module, $198 each (server ram):

http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Value...ata/B005NHRLQQ

...and its only going to get cheaper.

Actually, Newegg has 2x8GB of Super Talent DDR3 1333MHz for $82 right now.

And I see there are a few MSI X79 boards that support a maximum of 128GB of RAM!

1TB maximum supported RAM on a consumer board may be less than 10 years away.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's yet another reason why Microsoft sucks. They'd never be able to get away with screwing consumers with artificial limits like that if they didn't hold a virtual monopoly on the desktop.

Fuck you Microsoft.

Pisses me off that they do that too. They even do it in the enterprise market. You already finished spending 5k on some server software, but because you did not buy the enterprise edition (for like 20k) then you can only use a certain amount of ram, cpus etc... It's stupid really.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Pisses me off that they do that too. They even do it in the enterprise market. You already finished spending 5k on some server software, but because you did not buy the enterprise edition (for like 20k) then you can only use a certain amount of ram, cpus etc... It's stupid really.

There's always Linux

 

[Doppel]

10+

 

[Chaotic42]

Pisses me off that they do that too. They even do it in the enterprise market. You already finished spending 5k on some server software, but because you did not buy the enterprise edition (for like 20k) then you can only use a certain amount of ram, cpus etc... It's stupid really.

I have a serious question here. Why would you not use Unix on an enterprise server? I don't work on servers, and the last time I did we used just about one of every Unix under the sun. What does Windows Enterprise do for $20,000 that Linux couldn't do for free?

 

[child of wonder]

I have a serious question here. Why would you not use Unix on an enterprise server? I don't work on servers, and the last time I did we used just about one of every Unix under the sun. What does Windows Enterprise do for $20,000 that Linux couldn't do for free?

Active Directory
Group Policy
MDT
WSUS
Hyper-V
DFS
NPS
Terminal Services Web

 

[BurnItDwn]

I think in about 9-10 years we'll see PC's or laptops with the capacity of 4 x 256gb ram modules. (about as common as PC's with 32GB of ram are today... rare, but doable with 4 x 8gb dimms)

I think in 11-12 years they will be about as common as 16gb is today.

And, in 13-14 years, 1TB will be as common as 8GB is in today's age.

So, I do believe you will be able to buy an enthusiast type PC in under 10 years with 1TB of ram, however it won't really be common or practical for a few more years...

 

[baydude]

It will never happen, as 640GB will be enough for anyone.

Remember what happened when Bill Gates himself thought 640kb should be the limit and be enough for DOS?

 

[baydude]

We won't see that until cheap 1tb ssd comes out

 

[Chaotic42]

Remember what happened when Bill Gates himself thought 640kb should be the limit and be enough for DOS?

He never said that: Link

 

[Kaido]

I think that sometime in the future we will be using a terabyte of memory.

You can do it now, off-the-shelf...if you the money. For example:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/5U/5086/SYS-5086B-TRF.cfm

64 sticks of 16GB DDR3 ECC @ $188/ea comes to about $12,000 on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Value...ata/B005NHRLQQ

You can go up to 4TB in a turnkey server if you want. All depends on the bucks!

 

[rivan]

I think in about 9-10 years we'll see PC's or laptops with the capacity of 4 x 256gb ram modules. (about as common as PC's with 32GB of ram are today... rare, but doable with 4 x 8gb dimms)

I think in 11-12 years they will be about as common as 16gb is today.

And, in 13-14 years, 1TB will be as common as 8GB is in today's age.

So, I do believe you will be able to buy an enthusiast type PC in under 10 years with 1TB of ram, however it won't really be common or practical for a few more years...

I think we're already reaching a point where a normal laptop does the vast majority of what the average computer user asks of it in a very short amount of time. Surfing, email, video chat, etc. I think we're at a real tipping point for diminishing returns; look at the number of computing cycles that go unused globally already.

Unless there's a killer app that drives the NEED for that much RAM, I don't know that it'll come any time soon. Who knows - perfect voice recognition and (local) processing? Widespread, useful VR of some sort? Video standards will get higher rez in the next 20 years, possibly go 3D standard, but we're close to the point where even a full 2560x 3D video could fit fully in RAM in a 16GB machine.

 

[spidey07]

Cisco's UCS have special memory controller to get to 1 TB addressable.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps11584/index.html

 

[Kaido]

I think we're already reaching a point where a normal laptop does the vast majority of what the average computer user asks of it in a very short amount of time. Surfing, email, video chat, etc. I think we're at a real tipping point for diminishing returns; look at the number of computing cycles that go unused globally already.

Unless there's a killer app that drives the NEED for that much RAM, I don't know that it'll come any time soon. Who knows - perfect voice recognition and (local) processing? Widespread, useful VR of some sort? Video standards will get higher rez in the next 20 years, possibly go 3D standard, but we're close to the point where even a full 2560x 3D video could fit fully in RAM in a 16GB machine.

Are you kidding?? Office 2030 will suck up at LEAST that amount and still take 20 seconds to boot :biggrin:

 

[FelixDeCat]

Are you kidding?? Office 2030 will suck up at LEAST that amount and still take 20 seconds to boot :biggrin:

Thats because Office 2030 will have virtual immigrants that do the work for you. They wake up late sometimes.

 

[Kaido]

I think we're at a real tipping point for diminishing returns; look at the number of computing cycles that go unused globally already.

Yah, I actually think we hit that point a couple years ago. I've switched my entire family/extended family out to Quad-core machines with 8 gigs of RAM and it's more than any of them will ever use, especially with the speed of the new SSD drives. Add in LogMeIn for remote support & Backblaze for file backup, poof, done. I've also been putting in those $249 LED-backlit Hanns-G 27" LCD monitors. You can do a really incredible machine for under a grand these days...and I don't foresee them upgrading pretty much forever lol.

 

[LurkerPrime]

I just got 32GB or ram in my new computer. Nothing even comes close to using it all. After about a week of use, even windows 7 is only caching around 12GB of programs into RAM. Most programs are still 32bit and are limited to the 4GB cap anyway. Right now I think 32GB will easily hold me over for the next 4-5 years. I would be surprised if 128GB is even mainstream in 10+ years. I think we are more likely to see a SDD/RAM merger (memristor tech) than to ever reach 1TB of RAM being the norm in home computers.

 

[rivan]

Are you kidding?? Office 2030 will suck up at LEAST that amount and still take 20 seconds to boot :biggrin:

You have a point.

Microsoft BOB - now in 3D smell-o-vision!

 

[Kaido]

I just got 32GB or ram in my new computer. Nothing even comes close to using it all. After about a week of use, even windows 7 is only caching around 12GB of programs into RAM. Most programs are still 32bit and are limited to the 4GB cap anyway. Right now I think 32GB will easily hold me over for the next 4-5 years. I would be surprised if 128GB is even mainstream in 10+ years. I think we are more likely to see a SDD/RAM merger (memristor tech) than to ever reach 1TB of RAM being the norm in home computers.

Funny, I was just working on a new engineering computer quote at work - 64 gigs of RAM is like $350 these days. Ridiculous. Do want :awe:

 

[LurkerPrime]

Funny, I was just working on a new engineering computer quote at work - 64 gigs of RAM is like $350 these days. Ridiculous. Do want :awe:

The Z77 MBs only supports up to 32GB, so thats what I went with (only $170 at the time). Although since your not paying for it, you can go with an X79 MB and, a 6 core processor and 64-128GB ram.

 

[Brovane]

I have a serious question here. Why would you not use Unix on an enterprise server? I don't work on servers, and the last time I did we used just about one of every Unix under the sun. What does Windows Enterprise do for $20,000 that Linux couldn't do for free?

Remember free equals no support. Windows Server also doesn't cost 20000. At my work we can get Windows Server 2008 Enterprise R2 for around $1600 a licensce. When you start paying for Red Hat Enterprise Licensces for with support the price differential goes way down. Both Windows Server 2008 and Linux have their place in the data center. However I don't think many admins would install a free version of Linux on a mission critical server.

 

[Brovane]

IMHO Ram is all about DIMM size coupled with the amount of DIMM slots you have in your system and what the sweet spot is from RAM.

Several months ago I was able to get 6x4GB for my new system at a very reasonable price.

In order to see 1TB system you would need to see either 128GB or 256GB DIMM's that are reasonably priced. For servers the biggest I can see is 32GB.

For Servers it is also about DIMM Slots. You can get a R910 with 64-DIMM slots this allows 2TB of RAM if you wanted to. You would pay through the nose for 32GB DIMM's so probably 16GB DIMM's would be more reasonable. Even then 16GB DIMM's are still pricey. So probably 8GB DIMM's would be the sweet spot(512GB). However not that long ago 8GB DIMM where very pricey.

What would you do with this much RAM. Probably run some type of Virtualization on it like Hyper-V or VMware. However running this many virtualization machines on one piece of hardware would be in IMHO a little risky. For example would you rather have 3xR910 with 512GB of RAM or say 6xR810 with 256GB each in your virtual cluster. With the R910 if one fails your servers have a lot more slack to pick up (You essentially have lost 1/3 of you memory capacity, CPU etc.). However with R810 and you lose one server you have lost 1/6 of your capacity. However 6xR810 will probably require more licensing, more Fiber Channel/network ports etc. It is all a trade off where you have to mix and match what is best.

 

[Kaido]

The Z77 MBs only supports up to 32GB, so thats what I went with (only $170 at the time). Although since your not paying for it, you can go with an X79 MB and, a 6 core processor and 64-128GB ram.

Yup, it was a 6-core X79 rig. Granted the DCC video cards cost about 3x as much as the whole rigs do these days...

 

[Kaido]

Remember free equals no support. Windows Server also doesn't cost 20000. At my work we can get Windows Server 2008 Enterprise R2 for around $1600 a licensce. When you start paying for Red Hat Enterprise Licensces for with support the price differential goes way down. Both Windows Server 2008 and Linux have their place in the data center. However I don't think many admins would install a free version of Linux on a mission critical server.

I used to be a Linux nerd with that mindset...why not free? Why not DIY? And that's exactly it...support. Right now I have over 200 users, 100+ desktops, 10 servers, and no free time. Buying reliable plug & play equipment like Dell servers with Windows Server OS (yes, I used to scoff at "reliable" and Windows), Sonicwall, etc., with paid support is awesome, if your company has the budget for it...and if it's mission critical, they better have the budget for it, or you better be dang good at *nix :biggrin: