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I don't understand how long will this bullshit continue. At the moment your average phone can technically support more than 16GB of RAM (LPDDR4), but not Intel'

I don't understand how long will this bullshit continue. At the moment your average phone can technically support more than 16GB of RAM (LPDDR4), but not Intel's laptop CPUs. Is there some kind of massive obstacle that we don't know about?

mbell 9y ago
Intel is just behind, Cannonlake which supports LPDDR4 is now ~18 months late. LPDDR4 also uses a different physical signaling scheme than LPDDR3 so it's not a minor change to adapt current processors, if it is even possible without a packaging change.
- nerpderp83 9y ago
  Technical management failure in how to mitigate late or stalled deps, fallback should have been to add ddr4 modems to existing chips.
  - Declanomous 9y ago
    That seem plausible to me, but aren't memory pretty tightly integrated into the design in a modern processor? How would you be able to take advantage of the additional RAM? Second question, do modems exist that could handle the bandwidth of existing designs? It seems like something that would be extraordinarily expensive, and there wouldn't be much of a benefit considering Intel doesn't have competition on this front.
    - wtallis 9y ago
      DRAM controllers used to be on the motherboard, not the CPU. That changed for AMD in 2003 and Intel in 2008, but it is not at all interwoven with the CPU core itself. Processors within the same product line with varying core counts use the exact same DRAM controller blocks. This is really obvious on the Intel server chips where the CPU cores are linked by a ring or mesh bus and the DRAM controllers are just another stop at the far edges of those interconnects. Intel can update their DRAM controller independently of the CPU core microarchitecture, just like they can update the integrated GPU microarchitecture independently of the CPU core microarchitecture. The only reason why they might not be releasing a CPU with LPDDR4 yet is if they never expected to need an LPDDR4 controller before their 10nm process was ready, and never started designing a 14nm LPDDR4-capable controller. If so, that's a clear miscalculation on their part and a sign that the processor architects are probably insufficiently skeptical of what the fab guys are telling them.
      - Declanomous 9y ago
        That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the explanation
  - yuhong 9y ago
    Probably not trivial though, and I would not be surprised if many of these has already taped out and sampled. In general a modern DDR3/DDR4 memory controller is not a trivial thing to do.
brandonmenc 9y ago
With super fast SSDs, does anyone really need 32GB of RAM? I don't even shut down my multiple JetBrains IDEs and gazillion browser tabs or bloated Slack when I take a break and pin the CPU with Ableton Live and a bunch of soft synths on my MBP. Nothing skips a beat. Is anyone seriously running into issues with only 16GB of RAM?
- _sigma 9y ago
  Scientific dataset processing with R and python frequently pushes up against 16GB. Having more room with 32 or 64 would be fantastic.
- dagss 9y ago
  Some people store data in RAM not software.
- Jesus_Jones 9y ago
  Yes, for devs with vms for compiling and testing like my team does, 16gb is not enough. Thus we are moving off macbooks. You can argue that you shouldn't do that on a laptop, you should have a desktop that you always connect to, but that's not how we prefer to do it. If there was no laptop with more than say 8 gig we'd probably have gone that way. 16gb is almost enough.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    why did you prefer laptops to a bigger and cheaper in a bang for buck way desktop machine?
    - Jesus_Jones 9y ago
      Because people wanted to take them around. At first, I think the dev system fit in 16 gig macbook pro without any trouble and it was a startup, so it was just natural to say that's all you need. Then the dev env started getting a little bit bigger. I showed up at the company and noticed you couldn't run the vm for a test and compile separately at the same time. Next I found out I couldn't have a bunch of tabs open while doing dev. So that was painful, and I got a desktop. The existing people who were used to how things worked said you shouldn't have a bunch of tabs open, don't do that and it works fine (oh and don't run any tests while compiling). Then as memory use kept up even the at most 4 tabs people found they kept running out of memory and they bought a few 32 gig laptops and suddenly things worked again. A few of us have desktops, most people are struggling with 16 gig notebooks and they started buying 32 gig notebooks for people that want them.
pixl97 9y ago
> Is there some kind of massive obstacle that we don't know about? Intel's profits?
- jhallenworld 9y ago
  Maybe Apple's. LPDDR4 is surely more expensive.
bluedino 9y ago
The ARK page says the CPU can handle 64GB. LPDDR4 memory isn’t required when you’re going to be sucking as much power as this chip will
- yuhong 9y ago
  I bet that this is based on four SO-DIMM laptops, not 16Gbit DDR4.
stock_toaster 9y ago
Possibly another reason apple may be looking to do their own laptop cpus? six to 8 iphone's "glued together" would be somewhat appealing.
opencl 9y ago
Intel's laptop CPUs do support more than 16GB, just not more than 16GB of low power RAM. You can even get a Lenovo P51 with a mobile Xeon and 64GB ECC RAM.
- diffeomorphism 9y ago
  All common Intel laptop CPUs (core ...) don't. The Xeons are the sole exception and only available in a few workstations.
flukus 9y ago
The obstacle is lack of demand, the average user still has 4GB or less of RAM: https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/#goto-os-and-architecture https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/#goto-os-and-architectu... . People that need more than 16GB (as of today) are an incredibly niche market and can be better served by remoting into a desktop/server anyway.
chasedehan 9y ago
Just download more ram... https://downloadmoreram.com/ https://downloadmoreram.com/

mbell 9y ago

Intel is just behind, Cannonlake which supports LPDDR4 is now ~18 months late. LPDDR4 also uses a different physical signaling scheme than LPDDR3 so it's not a minor change to adapt current processors, if it is even possible without a packaging change.

nerpderp83 9y ago
Technical management failure in how to mitigate late or stalled deps, fallback should have been to add ddr4 modems to existing chips.
- Declanomous 9y ago
  That seem plausible to me, but aren't memory pretty tightly integrated into the design in a modern processor? How would you be able to take advantage of the additional RAM? Second question, do modems exist that could handle the bandwidth of existing designs? It seems like something that would be extraordinarily expensive, and there wouldn't be much of a benefit considering Intel doesn't have competition on this front.
  - wtallis 9y ago
    DRAM controllers used to be on the motherboard, not the CPU. That changed for AMD in 2003 and Intel in 2008, but it is not at all interwoven with the CPU core itself. Processors within the same product line with varying core counts use the exact same DRAM controller blocks. This is really obvious on the Intel server chips where the CPU cores are linked by a ring or mesh bus and the DRAM controllers are just another stop at the far edges of those interconnects. Intel can update their DRAM controller independently of the CPU core microarchitecture, just like they can update the integrated GPU microarchitecture independently of the CPU core microarchitecture. The only reason why they might not be releasing a CPU with LPDDR4 yet is if they never expected to need an LPDDR4 controller before their 10nm process was ready, and never started designing a 14nm LPDDR4-capable controller. If so, that's a clear miscalculation on their part and a sign that the processor architects are probably insufficiently skeptical of what the fab guys are telling them.
    - Declanomous 9y ago
      That makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the explanation
- yuhong 9y ago
  Probably not trivial though, and I would not be surprised if many of these has already taped out and sampled. In general a modern DDR3/DDR4 memory controller is not a trivial thing to do.

brandonmenc 9y ago

With super fast SSDs, does anyone really need 32GB of RAM? I don't even shut down my multiple JetBrains IDEs and gazillion browser tabs or bloated Slack when I take a break and pin the CPU with Ableton Live and a bunch of soft synths on my MBP. Nothing skips a beat. Is anyone seriously running into issues with only 16GB of RAM?

_sigma 9y ago
Scientific dataset processing with R and python frequently pushes up against 16GB. Having more room with 32 or 64 would be fantastic.
dagss 9y ago
Some people store data in RAM not software.
Jesus_Jones 9y ago
Yes, for devs with vms for compiling and testing like my team does, 16gb is not enough. Thus we are moving off macbooks. You can argue that you shouldn't do that on a laptop, you should have a desktop that you always connect to, but that's not how we prefer to do it. If there was no laptop with more than say 8 gig we'd probably have gone that way. 16gb is almost enough.
- walshemj 9y ago
  why did you prefer laptops to a bigger and cheaper in a bang for buck way desktop machine?
  - Jesus_Jones 9y ago
    Because people wanted to take them around. At first, I think the dev system fit in 16 gig macbook pro without any trouble and it was a startup, so it was just natural to say that's all you need. Then the dev env started getting a little bit bigger. I showed up at the company and noticed you couldn't run the vm for a test and compile separately at the same time. Next I found out I couldn't have a bunch of tabs open while doing dev. So that was painful, and I got a desktop. The existing people who were used to how things worked said you shouldn't have a bunch of tabs open, don't do that and it works fine (oh and don't run any tests while compiling). Then as memory use kept up even the at most 4 tabs people found they kept running out of memory and they bought a few 32 gig laptops and suddenly things worked again. A few of us have desktops, most people are struggling with 16 gig notebooks and they started buying 32 gig notebooks for people that want them.

pixl97 9y ago

> Is there some kind of massive obstacle that we don't know about? Intel's profits?

jhallenworld 9y ago
Maybe Apple's. LPDDR4 is surely more expensive.

bluedino 9y ago

The ARK page says the CPU can handle 64GB. LPDDR4 memory isn’t required when you’re going to be sucking as much power as this chip will

yuhong 9y ago
I bet that this is based on four SO-DIMM laptops, not 16Gbit DDR4.

stock_toaster 9y ago

Possibly another reason apple may be looking to do their own laptop cpus? six to 8 iphone's "glued together" would be somewhat appealing.

opencl 9y ago

Intel's laptop CPUs do support more than 16GB, just not more than 16GB of low power RAM. You can even get a Lenovo P51 with a mobile Xeon and 64GB ECC RAM.

diffeomorphism 9y ago
All common Intel laptop CPUs (core ...) don't. The Xeons are the sole exception and only available in a few workstations.

flukus 9y ago

The obstacle is lack of demand, the average user still has 4GB or less of RAM: https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/#goto-os-and-architecture https://hardware.metrics.mozilla.com/#goto-os-and-architectu... . People that need more than 16GB (as of today) are an incredibly niche market and can be better served by remoting into a desktop/server anyway.

chasedehan 9y ago

Just download more ram... https://downloadmoreram.com/ https://downloadmoreram.com/