So what's the deal with FB-DIMM?

[Baraclese]

I see this is only meant for servers/workstations at the moment. Are there plans to introduce this for Desktop PCs? I've read that you can increase the available bandwidth by plugging more FB-DIMM pairs into your motherboard. Are there benchmarks that show the benefits this brings?

*Someone gift me a MacPro please*

 

[zsouthboy]

It's serial data transmission.

Think parallel ata vs. serial ata.

Costs are higher because a controller chip of sorts needs to be built into each stick.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I've read it adds a small bit of latency but will be very useful for increasing bandwith and capacity, and should end up being mainstream. Maybe with the AM3 socket ?
And FB-DIMM allows memory chip technology to evolve while retaining compatibility, i.e. you can have DDR2 or DDR3 FB-DIMM.

 

[arjan de lumens]

AFAICS, trading increased latency for increased bandwidth in this manner makes good sense when you have a heavily multithreaded/multi-CPU setup, but not when your setup has only 1 or 2 CPUs or threads (as witnessed by e.g. AMD's recent change from S939 to AM2, where a 100% increase in theoretical bandwidth translated into about 1-2% actual increased performance.)

 

[Blazkowicz]

it seems to me we can only go this route anyway, memory technologies keep increasing bandwith without doing much to latency (DDR, dual channel, DDR2, DDR3)

 

[pcchen]

This presentation is a nice although a bit old introduction to FB-DIMM. Although FB-DIMM is very useful on servers, I don't think we need it on desktop computers, at least in near future.

 

[hoom]

Seems kind of like take one step forwards going from north bridge to on CPU memory controller (AMD) & then step back to north bridge but now stuck direct to the RAM

[edit]Just read the above presentation & I see why its going to be good for servers but until we start having PC users wanting to use more than 4 DIMMs at once you have a pointless latency increase on the desktop (which would be why Intel & AMD are talking server only)[/edit]