• @brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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    23
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    21 days ago

    Eventually most system RAM will have to be packaged anyway. Physics dictates that one pays a penalty going over pins and mobo traces, and it gets more severe with every advancement.

    It’s possible that external RAM will eventually evolve into a “2nd tier” of system memory, for background processes, spillover, inactive programs/data, things like that.

    • @leisesprecher@feddit.org
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      1521 days ago

      It’s already fourth tier after L1, L2, L3 caches.

      Maybe something like optane will make a comeback. Having 16gb of soldered RAM and 500gb of relatively slow, but inexpensive optane RAM would be great.

      • @brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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        621 days ago

        DRAM is so cheap and ubiquitous that they will probably keep using that, barring any massive breakthroughs. The “persistence after power-off” is nice to have, but not strictly needed.

      • @brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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        111 days ago

        Keep in mind that it would be pretty slow, as it doesn’t make sense to burn power and die area on a wide secondary bus.