Other Components Affecting RAM

[LtStaffel]

Hello,

I'm thinking I'd like to try and make a computer that uses RAM as it's storage. So I put together this. Thing is, I don't know much about how RAM is affected by other components. So my base question is this: Will I get the speeds on the RAM I'm paying for in that build, and if not, how would I do so? I believe it should work, but I'm just making sure there aren't any hindrances I don't know about before I go and get the stuff.

[VTF5252]

I think you will want more ram because with what you have there you have 8ish GB to use. Also remember that every time you boot it will have to rewrite the ram disk. This means that there is no real benefit and based on the processor being a Pentium i'm guessing you'll want a decent price to performance. Ram has a pretty terrible $/Performance simply because it's not meant for it. What do you plan on putting on the ram disk?

[LtStaffel]

1 hour ago, NTF5252 said:

I think you will want more ram because with what you have there you have 8ish GB to use. Also remember that every time you boot it will have to rewrite the ram disk. This means that there is no real benefit and based on the processor being a Pentium i'm guessing you'll want a decent price to performance. Ram has a pretty terrible $/Performance simply because it's not meant for it. What do you plan on putting on the ram disk?

The operating system.

[runit3]

11 minutes ago, LtStaffel said:

The operating system.

You can't install an OS onto a RAM disk, it would be wiped every time you reset/shut down the PC. You could on a hardware level RAM disk device, which AFAIK, are extremely hard to find (and expensive).

 

If you're trying to do a software level RAM disk, what makes you believe it is necessary?

 

Also, maximum memory supported by the G4440 is 32GB, you would want at least 8GB for OS and applications. What software/programs/data are you going to keep on the RAM disk that would total under 24GB and would really need the extra speed of RAM level access for performance?

 

The most economical, and generally an easier solution, is to run something like a Samsung 950/951 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD for the OS and data/programs you need for boosted speed, and having a standard HDD as bulk storage (or even a regular AHCI SATA SSD).

[LtStaffel]

47 minutes ago, runit3 said:

You can't install an OS onto a RAM disk, it would be wiped every time you reset/shut down the PC. You could on a hardware level RAM disk device, which AFAIK, are extremely hard to find (and expensive).

 

If you're trying to do a software level RAM disk, what makes you believe it is necessary?

 

Also, maximum memory supported by the G4440 is 32GB, you would want at least 8GB for OS and applications. What software/programs/data are you going to keep on the RAM disk that would total under 24GB and would really need the extra speed of RAM level access for performance?

 

The most economical, and generally an easier solution, is to run something like a Samsung 950/951 PRO NVMe M.2 SSD for the OS and data/programs you need for boosted speed, and having a standard HDD as bulk storage (or even a regular AHCI SATA SSD).

I know it'd get wiped every time and stuff. I want to try to do this as a programming project, I have a whole idea for everything. Plus, even if that didn't work out, there are distributions of Linux that do this. Lastly, I'm keeping my current computer, this wouldn't a computer for general use and stuff, it's more to see if I can do it and to experiment.

[runit3]

6 hours ago, LtStaffel said:

I know it'd get wiped every time and stuff. I want to try to do this as a programming project, I have a whole idea for everything. Plus, even if that didn't work out, there are distributions of Linux that do this. Lastly, I'm keeping my current computer, this wouldn't a computer for general use and stuff, it's more to see if I can do it and to experiment.

Well now I'm interested What are the parameters of the experiment?

 

If you wanted to perform this in any meaningful way statistically it would be wise to create the OS in a VM so that you can have a VM container backup with your initial OS, create the RAM disk in software, then copy over the container to the RAM disk and launch it. It may not give a true 1:1 correlation with real time OS performance from RAM, but it would be a solid proof of concept (and free) before you ended up dumping a ton of money into a hardware level RAM disk.

 

Linux distro installs are fast, but I can't imagine them being magnitudes faster installing on RAM as opposed to NVMe. It would be a giant PIA to reinstall the OS every launch. Also, not sure what board would allow you to do this with no boot device available for installation.

[VTF5252]

7 hours ago, LtStaffel said:

I know it'd get wiped every time and stuff. I want to try to do this as a programming project, I have a whole idea for everything. Plus, even if that didn't work out, there are distributions of Linux that do this. Lastly, I'm keeping my current computer, this wouldn't a computer for general use and stuff, it's more to see if I can do it and to experiment.

If it's an experiment make sure to keep the forum up to date. This is something that seems like a cool project and at least personally if love to know more!

[LtStaffel]

21 hours ago, runit3 said:

Well now I'm interested What are the parameters of the experiment?

 

If you wanted to perform this in any meaningful way statistically it would be wise to create the OS in a VM so that you can have a VM container backup with your initial OS, create the RAM disk in software, then copy over the container to the RAM disk and launch it. It may not give a true 1:1 correlation with real time OS performance from RAM, but it would be a solid proof of concept (and free) before you ended up dumping a ton of money into a hardware level RAM disk.

 

Linux distro installs are fast, but I can't imagine them being magnitudes faster installing on RAM as opposed to NVMe. It would be a giant PIA to reinstall the OS every launch. Also, not sure what board would allow you to do this with no boot device available for installation.

The VM is a good idea. I think I'll try that route. I really don't have many clues as to what I'm actually doing, but I was thinking I'd try to write a very small OS that would go on the non-volatile storage and would generate the real OS onto the RAM upon startup. I'm not even sure what's possible, but I'm going to learn assembly and some C variants and take a stab at it.

[Guest]

Don't get a Pentium and Z170... 

[LtStaffel]

Just now, TheCovertCamper said:

Don't get a Pentium and Z170... 

Did you read what the whole thing is about?

[Guest]

Just now, LtStaffel said:

Did you read what the whole thing is about?

I assume that's the cheapest board that supports RAMDisk, then?

[LtStaffel]

Just now, TheCovertCamper said:

I assume that's the cheapest board that supports RAMDisk, then?

Cheapest board that supports that kind of RAM speed, I'm going to be doing everything software related myself.

[Guest]

Just now, LtStaffel said:

Cheapest board that supports that kind of RAM speed

That's fair, and a really good price for 3200 DDR4. If you are sure that the software side of things will work, then go for it. I am more of a hardware guy, so I cannot provide any more advice with the OS/BIOS side of things.

[MageTank]

On 2/9/2016 at 9:13 AM, LtStaffel said:

Hello,

I'm thinking I'd like to try and make a computer that uses RAM as it's storage. So I put together this. Thing is, I don't know much about how RAM is affected by other components. So my base question is this: Will I get the speeds on the RAM I'm paying for in that build, and if not, how would I do so? I believe it should work, but I'm just making sure there aren't any hindrances I don't know about before I go and get the stuff.

Ok, let me begin by saying, that CPU will bottleneck your memory. There is no getting around it, even if you overclock it as high as you can get it.

 

I know my word is hard to trust, given that I am a random person on the internet, but I do have screenshots to back my claims up. 

 

The following screenshot is my ram, 100% optimized from primary all the way to tertiary, and completely overclocked to the max that i could get from it. 

 

The next screenshot, is me overclocking the CPU. 

 

 

Notice how just by touching the CPU, and bringing it to 4.65ghz with the exact same memory settings, improved my reading bandwidth by 3GB/s. Write and Copy were not as drastic of a difference, but the faster CPU clock did show an improvement for the most part. However, we are not finished. Let's take a look at the exact same memory, with a quad core 6600T. 

 

 

Same memory settings, slower single threaded speed (4.32ghz vs 4.65ghz) and yet another 2GB/s read speed added to it. If you leave that CPU at stock, that memory won't even stretch its legs. If you leave the ram at XMP settings, and do not optimize its tertiary timings like i did, you MIGHT be able to get away with using an overclocked G4400, but it's still a bottleneck in the end. Not to mention overclocking locked CPU's its difficult now with Intel cracking down on them. Need to have a board that supports it, with an archived BIOS, and windows update disabled via Group Policy Editor. 

 

Also, for your little project, look into Primocache. You might enjoy it. Hope this helped you out.

[LtStaffel]

15 hours ago, MageTank said:

Ok, let me begin by saying, that CPU will bottleneck your memory. There is no getting around it, even if you overclock it as high as you can get it.

 

I know my word is hard to trust, given that I am a random person on the internet, but I do have screenshots to back my claims up. 

 

The following screenshot is my ram, 100% optimized from primary all the way to tertiary, and completely overclocked to the max that i could get from it. 

 

The next screenshot, is me overclocking the CPU. 

 

 

Notice how just by touching the CPU, and bringing it to 4.65ghz with the exact same memory settings, improved my reading bandwidth by 3GB/s. Write and Copy were not as drastic of a difference, but the faster CPU clock did show an improvement for the most part. However, we are not finished. Let's take a look at the exact same memory, with a quad core 6600T. 

 

 

Same memory settings, slower single threaded speed (4.32ghz vs 4.65ghz) and yet another 2GB/s read speed added to it. If you leave that CPU at stock, that memory won't even stretch its legs. If you leave the ram at XMP settings, and do not optimize its tertiary timings like i did, you MIGHT be able to get away with using an overclocked G4400, but it's still a bottleneck in the end. Not to mention overclocking locked CPU's its difficult now with Intel cracking down on them. Need to have a board that supports it, with an archived BIOS, and windows update disabled via Group Policy Editor. 

 

Also, for your little project, look into Primocache. You might enjoy it. Hope this helped you out.

So what is the minimum CPU you'd recommend to get to best out of at least 3000mhz RAM?

[MageTank]

45 minutes ago, LtStaffel said:

So what is the minimum CPU you'd recommend to get to best out of at least 3000mhz RAM?

I personally do not know if i3's are enough to do it. I know i5's are enough, even the cheapest ones at 2.7ghz can get the most out of the ram, because they boost to 3.3 (mine boosts to 3.5) quite often, and its more than enough to get the most out of your ram. 

 

The other problem i have with your part list, is your choice of going 4x4gb. 4GB sticks are single ranked, so you lack rank interleaving that is available on 8gb+ sticks. Going 2x8GB would offer more bandwidth all around, for virtually no additional cost. 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($183.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock Z170A-X1/3.1 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($98.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  ($129.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Corsair Force LS 60GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($38.96 @ Amazon) 
Case: NZXT Source 210 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($34.99 @ Directron) 
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($44.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $531.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-11 08:34 EST-0500

 

I know this is a lot more expensive than your previous list, but hear me out. The ram i picked out is 3200mhz CL14-14-14-34-CR2. There is not a doubt in my mind you can get it to CR1 for free, and out of the box, have better primary's than my custom overclocked ram. My current ram when custom OC'd, is 3200mhz CL15-15-15-30-CR1. 

 

You also have the advantage of rank interleaving, which will make a huge difference on ramdisk workloads. After all, it allows you to read with one rank, while writing to another. 

 

The CPU choice is pretty obvious. It's the cheapest i5 i could find. You would benefit from using a faster CPU, because RamDisks care about 3 things. Latency, overhead, and CPU speed. Faster CPU, the better the experience. After all, your bottleneck at this point is not the raw bandwidth of the memory itself, because we are talking around 50GB/s speeds, lightning fast. You will need a processor fast enough to actually saturate that bandwidth. Even an i5 might not be enough under ramdisk loads. All i know is that on the specific benches i use, a G4400 falls short. I can also say without a doubt, that two threads on a RamDisk is asking for trouble. You will need an i5 at the very least to even have a shot at using a ramdisk, and even then, i worry that the low speed might not be enough. If you can save up and afford a cheap locked i7, or an unlocked i5, I would try to go that route. 

[LtStaffel]

3 hours ago, MageTank said:

I personally do not know if i3's are enough to do it. I know i5's are enough, even the cheapest ones at 2.7ghz can get the most out of the ram, because they boost to 3.3 (mine boosts to 3.5) quite often, and its more than enough to get the most out of your ram. 

 

The other problem i have with your part list, is your choice of going 4x4gb. 4GB sticks are single ranked, so you lack rank interleaving that is available on 8gb+ sticks. Going 2x8GB would offer more bandwidth all around, for virtually no additional cost. 

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($183.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Motherboard: ASRock Z170A-X1/3.1 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($98.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  ($129.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Corsair Force LS 60GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($38.96 @ Amazon) 
Case: NZXT Source 210 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($34.99 @ Directron) 
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($44.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $531.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-11 08:34 EST-0500

 

I know this is a lot more expensive than your previous list, but hear me out. The ram i picked out is 3200mhz CL14-14-14-34-CR2. There is not a doubt in my mind you can get it to CR1 for free, and out of the box, have better primary's than my custom overclocked ram. My current ram when custom OC'd, is 3200mhz CL15-15-15-30-CR1. 

 

You also have the advantage of rank interleaving, which will make a huge difference on ramdisk workloads. After all, it allows you to read with one rank, while writing to another. 

 

The CPU choice is pretty obvious. It's the cheapest i5 i could find. You would benefit from using a faster CPU, because RamDisks care about 3 things. Latency, overhead, and CPU speed. Faster CPU, the better the experience. After all, your bottleneck at this point is not the raw bandwidth of the memory itself, because we are talking around 50GB/s speeds, lightning fast. You will need a processor fast enough to actually saturate that bandwidth. Even an i5 might not be enough under ramdisk loads. All i know is that on the specific benches i use, a G4400 falls short. I can also say without a doubt, that two threads on a RamDisk is asking for trouble. You will need an i5 at the very least to even have a shot at using a ramdisk, and even then, i worry that the low speed might not be enough. If you can save up and afford a cheap locked i7, or an unlocked i5, I would try to go that route. 

I'm thinking it might be better to save up then and build a computer that will actually have more RAM than the speed at which it can transfer data, to thus get use out of the project, since I'm going to be spending more than I initially thought I would be. I really appreciate all the knowledge you've shared