Dell and HP spotted advertising Optane memory as RAM

[branfrd]

I've been meaning to post about this earlier, and I didn't see where anyone else had posted about this. Having sold a ton of computers, I can tell you that customers were very confused when I told them that the computers didn't actually have 24 GB's of RAM.

Quote

Multiple PC OEMs are selling laptops outfitted with Intel Optane cache drives — but they’re improperly combining that information in ways that makes it seem as if the Optane cache drive represents some kind of DRAM rather than a conventional cache drive. Meanwhile, Intel has made explicit changes to its own Optane marketing FAQs that appear to greenlight this positioning. It’s a situation that could lead end-users who aren’t careful to draw very incorrect conclusions about what kind of system they are buying and what its capabilities are.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/271543-pc-oems-are-selling-laptops-with-optane-cache-drives-and-claiming-its-memory

 

Here is an example:

https://www.staples.com/hp-pavilion-desktop-590-p0086-intel-i7-1tb-hdd-24gb-ram-windows-10/product_24341094

[AngryBeaver]

If it is being used as a storage location for say you virtual memory then this could be "partially true" I say partially because while it is MUCH faster than say your virtual memory on a spin drive it is still going to be much slower than ddr4 ram. That being said if utilized correctly it could be leveraged so that real life performance improves greatly in a situation you are heavily using virtual memory.
 

 

[Curufinwe_wins]

I mean... it is technically RAM. But that is a terrifyingly bad thing for consumers to be mislead with. System ddr vs optane.

[nick name]

They aren't calling it RAM.  They are saying the system has 24GB of memory.  And Optane is 100% memory.  While they do refer to Optane memory and System memory separately -- I believe it is still misleading to those who are not in the know as to what Optane actually is.  

[JoeCoke]

This is sickeningly misleading and the vast, VAST majority of people will fall for it. Hell, the majority of people don't even really understand the difference between RAM and storage, which I think too many of us more "techy" people forget. Most people are completely ignorant to how computers work, even on a basic level, so they compare numbers they don't understand. They'll read "24GB" and compare that to another all around better system but that system will only say "16GB", so they'll fall for the trap.

 

This is full of shit, and I'll be adding it to the long list of reasons why I hate Dell and HP. But it's not like it's surprising.

[Rune]

They've been doing this crap at my work too. Makes me angry.

[leadeater]

Well if it were the Optane DIMMs then it would be true... but it's not.

[CarlBar]

6 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Well if it were the Optane DIMMs then it would be true... but it's not.

 

Are those even a thing yet?

[leadeater]

36 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

Are those even a thing yet?

Yes an no, people like AWS and Google have them but they are not GA yet.

[Fnige]

What is the difference anyway?

[mr moose]

I have all the memory in my hard drive which is the big box that sits under my desk.  Sometimes I call it the CPU but its the same thing really.

[leadeater]

22 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I have all the memory in my hard drive which is the big box that sits under my desk.  Sometimes I call it the CPU but its the same thing really.

I think you'll find the case is the heatsink.

[mr moose]

5 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I think you'll find the case is the heatsink.

It doesn't have one of those because I don't play fishing games.

[Sauron]

8 hours ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

I mean... it is technically RAM.

No, it absolutely isn't. At least, not any more than a hard disk is.

3 hours ago, SlimyPython said:

What is the difference anyway?

An order of magnitude of speed, as well as persistence and memory cell technology. They have almost nothing in common.

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

Well if it were the Optane DIMMs then it would be true... but it's not.

Even then it would be different in much the same way as it is now.

8 hours ago, 2Buck said:

Technically, they're not lying.

Yes, they are. "Memory" has a precise meaning in computer science and storage, even when it's used for paging, doesn't count as memory.

[Guest]

41 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I have all the memory in my hard drive which is the big box that sits under my desk.  Sometimes I call it the CPU but its the same thing really.

I bought an Apple so I don't need to bother with all that chunky box haha ;-)~~. Living in the future havent got the need for the memory box just the screen. Everything just works. 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, RorzNZ said:

I bought an Apple so I don't need to bother with all that chunky box haha ;-)~~. Living in the future havent got the need for the memory box just the screen. Everything just works. 

where do all your pictures go?  do you loose them when you turn the monitor off?

[Guest]

Just now, mr moose said:

where do all your pictures go?  do you loose them when you turn the monitor off?

They all go into the cloud of course. Sometimes i just can't find the darn things! I call up my computer friend to sort it out, he works at the online security with Japan, although sometimes we're equally as stumped at this new-fangled technologies!

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, RorzNZ said:

They all go into the cloud of course. Sometimes i just can't find the darn things! I call up my computer friend to sort it out, he works at the online security with Japan, although sometimes we're equally as stumped at this new-fangled technologies!

When I turn my monitor off, I check behind it to see if that where they are. 

[Guest]

Just now, mr moose said:

When I turn my monitor off, I check behind it to see if that where they are. 

Mine go over the air to the cloud, so I look for them in the sky.

[Curufinwe_wins]

19 minutes ago, Sauron said:

No, it absolutely isn't. At least, not any more than a hard disk is.

An order of magnitude of speed, as well as persistence and memory cell technology. They have almost nothing in common.

Even then it would be different in much the same way as it is now.

Yes, they are. "Memory" has a precise meaning in computer science and storage, even when it's used for paging, doesn't count as memory.

It is random-access memory. Memory latency is the same regardless of where it is on the device. This is not true for hard-drives, or any optical memory.

 

By the classical definitions of RAM in computer science... optane nand is RAM. It is not DRAM. RAM is not necessarily volatile by definition.

 

Memory has a precise meaning. One that fits the boxes here. Virtual memory spaces (ala paging) are memory. Depending on their design, they may or may not be RAM.

 

DDR-200 CAS 3 had a per cycle time of 30 ns. Reported minimum latencies of Optane are around 300-500 ns (with real world minimums being closer to 1-5 um)

 

Optane is orders of magnitude faster than some of the older still technologies commonly referred to at the time (and in current speak) as RAM (like core assemblies RIP).

 

 

 

 

 

[Sauron]

2 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

It is random-access memory. Memory latency is the same regardless of where it is on the device. This is not true for hard-drives, or any optical memory.

 

By the classical definitions of RAM in computer science... optane nand is RAM. It is not DRAM. RAM is not necessarily volatile by definition.

Fair enough.

2 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Memory has a precise meaning. One that fits the boxes here. Virtual memory spaces (ala paging) are memory. Depending on their design, they may or may not be RAM.

Virtual memory is memory, but the storage it resides on is not. It still needs to be copied to physical memory in order to be used (unless optane works differently in this configuration).

3 minutes ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

DDR-300 CAS 3 had a per cycle time of 30 ns.

At low concurrency... optane isn't actually that much slower (latency).

But the peak transfer speed is not even close as far as I know - and the latency still must factor in the transfer to dram, meaning you still need to add the dram's own latency to it twice in the worst case scenario (unless, again, optane works differently from regular paging).

[Master Disaster]

So what next, netbooks with eMMC instead of hard drives also included in the "memory"?

[Curufinwe_wins]

2 minutes ago, Sauron said:

But the peak transfer speed is not even close as far as I know - and the latency still must factor in the transfer to dram, meaning you still need to add the dram's own latency to it twice in the worst case scenario (unless, again, optane works differently from regular paging).

This is completely true.

 

Also, if one were to add the requirement that RAM must be effectively-infinitely re-writable, then traditional NAND fails to meet that standard (since nand flash is really just fancy EEPROM), but optane might... (Xpoint research releases suggests it should be.)

[Sauron]

11 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

So what next, netbooks with eMMC instead of hard drives also included in the "memory"?

That's not very far fetched considering a lot of people claim they have 32 (or however many) GB of "memory" in their phones. It's even worse in languages where there isn't a convenient equivalent of the word "storage".

[Thaldor]

19 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

So what next, netbooks with eMMC instead of hard drives also included in the "memory"?

Not only that, they will also start marketing "Expandable memory!" when the PC has a memory card reader.