Gigabyte I-Ram - Boost those benchies!!!

[maverik-sg1]

What is it?

It's a ramdrive gone crazy!!

This is a PCI board that allows you to slap up to 4GB of ram in it and store data or use as a swap drive.

Couple this with a dual core rig and you got urself a machine that'll wee wee all over anything else in PCMark and CPC Benchmark.

Not sure how much it will be, but if you wanna boost those scores - this looks like the must have product for application benchmarking.

We tested the SATA II HD and i-RAM using Sandra and the results are very clear. The performance of i-RAM is even higher than that of a 3.5" 2xRAID 0(73G) array.

 

[maverik-sg1]

Some more Screenies

 

[Phil Stanbridge]

That is just ever so slightly bizarre wouldnt you say? Such an enormous increase over SataII.

 

[Vrykyl]

thats cos a ram drive has insanely low access times....whilst a sata2 hdd has access times in ms, a ram drive has access times in ns

Have you never run superpi from a virtual ram drive before? i found it gives quite a boost!!

 

[nick25]

I'm getting one of these!!!!!!

 

[maverik-sg1]

I'm getting one of these!!!!!!

Me too, but there's no surprise there I imagine?

Mav

 

[Master_G]

It's a nice piece of innovation by gigabyte there, hopefully will push forward more solid state ideas.

Would like to see how much it helps in the CPC benchmark, looks like it will create another superleague on top (over the dual core one already there).

G

 

[Psykotik]

It's nothing remarkably new, just Gigabyte's take on PURAM drives which are absolutely awesome. Should be prohibitively expensive tho!

 

[jellybeard999]

2 probs i can see ...

1 - price - even if gigabyte gave away the i-ram, its still £250 for 4gb of RAM (if it takes 4x1gb - if its 2x2gb i dont know price) and thats pricey per GB

2 - memory - its not permanent... its only stored for like 4hrs... tho if a vid editor could move vids to it, while editing, and move em back... might be of use in that way

 

[K404]

Thats going on my list to Santa this year, oh yes!

 

[Master_G]

2 - memory - its not permanent... its only stored for like 4hrs... tho if a vid editor could move vids to it, while editing, and move em back... might be of use in that way

It does better than 4hrs, IIRC it has a battery pack to allow it to last 14hours without the comp being turned on so it isnt too bad.

G

 

[nick25]

I thought it was stored until the computer was turned off? I'm a nOOb when it comes to knowing anything though

So whats the most memory you can have? Also can you now buy 2GB memory modules now?

 

[maverik-sg1]

It does not have to be 4 GB, it can be 2GB or even 1GB - Point is, it does what it does, 4x512MB can be had off ebay or even crucial for a reasonable price - and we are talking extreme performance here so is it really practical - if you use your PC everyday yes (with no longer than 14hrs between start-ups).

The unit is solid state with it's own back-up power to ensure no data loss during shut-down periods - it makes for a cracking swap-drive.

Mav

 

[Master_G]

The unit is solid state with it's own back-up power to ensure no data loss during shut-down periods - it makes for a cracking swap-drive.

I checked the info, i was 2 hours out, the battery pack lasts for 16hours, so if your computer is off for longer than that, you lose all the data on the drive.

G

 

[jellybeard999]

some Qs

if its a swap drive - how much ram needed ?

if its a swap drive - will it make much performance difference to having it on the same HDD as windows ?

 

[maverik-sg1]

some Qs

if its a swap drive - how much ram needed ?

if its a swap drive - will it make much performance difference to having it on the same HDD as windows ?

Swap Drive needs to be 768-1500MB in size - so ideally you will ned to eb looking at 2GB to get full benefit.

Mav

 

[nick25]

Mav when I asked how much memory it can take I was really wondering whether it can be more than 4GB not less

 

[maverik-sg1]

Mav when I asked how much memory it can take I was really wondering whether it can be more than 4GB not less

Excellent - be more specific if you want to whinge about the answer in future.......... my crystal ball is a little cloudy!!

 

[nick25]

So whats the most memory you can have?

Sorry if this sounded like I was asking what the minimum amount of memory one can have...

 

[maverik-sg1]

Thats okay mate but I thought when I started at 4GB and worked my way down the answer was staring you in the face and then some (stating the obvious of course)