Intel announces Optane DC Persistent Memory DIMMs

[onetheycallEric]

Why it matters: Intel's long awaited Optane DC Persistent Memory DIMMs have arrived and they could greatly transform the way servers and data centers handle data sets. The new DIMMs will see Intel attempting to bridge the price and performance gap between DRAM and NAND and the new class of memory opens up several unique use cases.

During Intel's Data-Centric Innovation Day, the company announced the highly anticipated Optane DC Persistent Memory DIMMs. While the new Cascade Lake Xeons may be the star of the show, Intel's Optane is a key product in propelling the company forward to its data-centric future for which they've come up with a new slogan "Moving, Storing and Processing Data."

The new Optane DIMMs fit under the "store" designation as Intel is looking to leverage them to store more data affordably, while also potentially disrupting the memory market. Intel's Optane DIMMs will use 3D XPoint memory, a type of non-volatile memory that is something of an amalgamation of NAND and DRAM.

A key aspect is that 3D XPoint retains data after power loss, which means it can be addressed as both memory and storage and poises it for many new use cases.

The new Optane DIMMs will populate a standard DDR4 slot, but offer much denser storage options: capacities of 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB will be offered. That's a significant increase from the current 128GB DDR4 module. Intel is positioning the DIMMs to bridge the price and performance gap between DRAM and NAND, although pricing details aren't currently known. However, the DIMMs are expected to be priced much lower than current DDR4 DRAM.

The DIMMs will also come with an SSD-like controller as well as a proprietary memory controller designed by Intel. Optane Memory DIMMs can be used with traditional DRAM, although they will be manged much differently due to latency, bandwidth and protocol concerns. Hence the need for Cascade Lake's reworked memory controller.

Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory in action (courtesy Storage Review)

Intel's new class of memory should allow servers to deploy much larger amounts of memory -- into the terabytes -- much closer to the CPU, in addition to traditional RAM. Intel's Optane DIMMs should in theory greatly reduce the amount of trips to storage systems. Because it's non-volatile, this should also make data loss from memory (should a server need to be rebooted or go down) almost a non-issue.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/79483-intel-announces-optane-dc-persistent-memory-dimms.html

 

[Misagt]

I'm looking forward to seeing this in action.

 

[kmo911]

Just like rdram and ddr 1. faster but less more exspensive.motherboard support in that time would benefit with rdram modules. so will they still use ddr4 and optane on same motherboard ?
will optane be ddr5 or just a new ddr3 between ddr4 update ?
we must 1st know if any motherboard get this new ram modules. benchmarks and so on.

so 1tb ram aboard nastromo was fast (alien the 7th passanger) so now 1 petabyte on all motherboards would be in a dye ? 1nd 100-1000 pb ssd hybrid

 

[Uncle Al]

All of this sounds wonderful but let's not forget that the code writers create based upon these discoveries and more than a few just plain "waste" tie space, speed, and improvements. Imagine if they had to write based upon something like the 8086 or 8088 processors? That kind of program on todays machines would be so fast you probably wouldn't have such a thing as "boot time". Of course, the difference in architecture, etc. makes it impossible BUT the point is they should be much more conservative so the benefit goes to the end user, not the programmer .......

 

[elementalSG]

This is going to be quite an amazing hardware stack to optimize for accessing data.

L1 cache [16KB-256KB] (>1000GB/s) -> L2 cache [256KB-2MB] (500GB/s) -> L3 [4MB-16MB] (250GB/s) -> System RAM [16GB-256GB] (20-50GB/s) -> Optane [128GB-4096GB] (3-5GB/s) -> SSD [1TB-32TB] (0.5-3GB/s) -> HDD [8TB-128TB] (0.25GB/s)

(Please note: the numbers are not exact, just estimates to show a comparison of data access speeds)

 

[elementalSG]

... am I from the future? This is really old news.

Did you come "here in a time machine that you invented"?

 

[quadibloc]

This could be used to enhance computer security. One could build a computer entirely without ROMs. Instead, one would deposit a bootloader in memory using the front panel switches, and then it would load in a better bootloader. That way, BIOS corruption and MBR hacks would be a thing of the past! Well, perhaps not really, because at some point one starts loading stuff from the hard drive instead of from paper tape where it is visible. But one could indeed go back to the days of old-fashioned computers with memory that is as persistent as core was.

 

[Nocturne]

This isnt going to be relevant to consumers until people can eliminate Ram and Storage in a regular system.

 

[zigi1337]

This could be used to enhance computer security. One could build a computer entirely without ROMs. Instead, one would deposit a bootloader in memory using the front panel switches, and then it would load in a better bootloader. That way, BIOS corruption and MBR hacks would be a thing of the past! Well, perhaps not really, because at some point one starts loading stuff from the hard drive instead of from paper tape where it is visible. But one could indeed go back to the days of old-fashioned computers with memory that is as persistent as core was.

It is a thing of past, heard of UEFI (GPT), secure boot and PKs?

 

[captaincranky]

I'm looking for Sarah Connor. Do you know where she lives?

Yes, here:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000T9OP7G/?tag=httpwwwtechsp-20

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001AQO43M/?tag=httpwwwtechsp-20

 

[elementalSG]

I'm looking for Sarah Connor. Do you know where she lives?

Unfortunately, I only know the location of John Connor. That, and where you can obtain 1.21 Jigawatts of electricity to power a flux capacitor.

Are you here to stop the proliferation of Optane DC persistent memory DIMMs from being used in Skynet?

 

[captaincranky]

For Christ sake, give me the real thing:

Tell you what, since you're involved with some bizarre fantasy that you're from the future, why not settle for Lena Headley and Summer Glau.? In other words, pretend. Neither one is hard on the eyes, and you get at least twenty times the screen time than you would with Linda Hamilton.

 

[captaincranky]

They can't beat Linda. And time is not an issue when you got a time machine, ya old fool.

Yes but Linda isn't "Sarah", you don't have a time machine.. Be it as I may, I must be an "old fool", to allow myself get sucked into the nonsense, drivel, and pure total bullsh!t you're posting in this thread.

Now put your, "time machine" in gear, and head on over to Facebook, where I'm sure your nonsense will be at least tolerated, if not openly welcomed: https://www.facebook.com/Linda.Carroll.Hamilton/

 

[erickmendes]

Yes but Linda isn't "Sarah", you don't have a time machine.. Be it as I may, I must be an "old fool", to allow myself get sucked into the nonsense, drivel, and pure total bullsh!t you're posting in this thread.

Now put your, "time machine" in gear, and head on over to Facebook, where I'm sure your nonsense will be at least tolerated, if not openly welcomed: https://www.facebook.com/Linda.Carroll.Hamilton/

Lol... That took a sour turn.
Man, it's called Techspot, not Captaincrankyspot.
If you don't want to play don't get down to the playground.
Calm down...

 

[captaincranky]

Know what Cap?
I don't know you. The only thing I own you is respect, as with anyone else. I was only having till you out of nowhere decided to act like this.

I didn't ask you to join my nonsense. You joinned by yourself. If something bothered you, flag It, don't come police my comments as If you were this site's owner.

I got enough on my hands in "real life" to spend time losing my energy and wasting my time with you. You can keep your grumpy mood to you.

Have a nice life.

Go call someone else an "old fool". You reap what you sow dude. Er sorry, I meant "time traveler".

 

[erickmendes]

Go call someone else an "old fool". You reap what you sow dude. Er sorry, I meant "time traveler".

Ok Captain, now I see that we got in the wrong foot... I apologize If It offended you. It really was not my intention. We were playing along, I didn't wanted to use the expression in any bad way. I'm being real here.

I respect you, It wasn't intentional. I hope you understand.

 

[captaincranky]

FWIW, Eliza Dushku, Amy Acker, and Summer Glau, all got their biggest starts in Series by Josh Whedon, (Along with David Boreanaz (Angel), now starring in "Seal Team"). Ms. Acker, (a former lingerie model), gained a major role in, "Person of Interest", as "Root".

I always call them, "Whedon's wenches. That silliness notwithstanding, the three young ladies are welcome eye candy to this day, on network TV.

"Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles", was bitterly mourned by many after its cancellation. It's about time for me to dig out those box sets, and give them a spin. If you haven't seen the show, it's worth a look.

Also, (before I forget), Nathan Fillian, started on "Buffy", starred in "Firefly", and then gained the starring role in a long running TV drama, "Castle".

All of those foregoing careers grew out of Whedon's, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel", it's spin off.

 

[Mugsy]

I've always felt the push towards (persistent) NVRAM in place of normal ram was a big mistake.

Sometimes you NEED your memory totally wiped so you can restart fresh and clear out any corrupt memory or even buffered malware hiding in your system.

Memory that never forgets can never restart "clean".