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Dell defends its controversial new laptop memory
If you were triggered over word that Dell is pushing a proprietary memory standard, take a chill pill. Dell's new memory design isn't really proprietary and may actually lead to benefits for performance laptops.
The controversy kicked up last week when images of Dell's new CAMM, or Compression Attached Memory Module, leaked out. This immediately lead tech sites to declare that Dell was taking a path to "lock out user upgrades" and warning laptop users who like to upgrade their memory that they were "out of luck."
In an interview with PCWorld, however, both the person who designed and patented the CAMM standard, as well as the product manager of the first Dell Precision laptop to feature it, assured us the intent of the new memory module standard is to head-off looming bandwidth ceilings in the current SO-DIMM designs. Dell's CAMM, in fact, could increase performance, improve reliability, aid user upgrades, and eventually lower costs too, they said.
[...] [Dell's Tom] Schnell said that Dell isn't making the modules and has worked with memory companies as well as Intel on this. In the future, a person with a CAMM-equipped laptop will be able to buy RAM from any third party and install it in the laptop. Yes, initially, Dell will likely be the only place to get CAMM upgrades, but that should change as the standard scales up and is adopted by other PC makers. The new memory modules are also built using commodity DRAMs just like conventional SO-DIMMs.
[...] So why do we need CAMM anyway? Dell's Schnell said that SO-DIMM, or Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Module, is headed for a glass ceiling within a generation of design. SO-DIMMs, which were first introduced almost 25 years ago, haven't changed much in all that time besides moving to newer and faster DRAM methods.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Revek on Wednesday April 27 2022, @06:02PM (3 children)
Every now and then dell decides to try to take the market over and they seem to try it with ram.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Wednesday April 27 2022, @07:19PM (2 children)
IIRC, Rambus is what RDRAM was called, but in fact is a company.
Again, IIRC, it was mostly Intel that made motherboards with RDRAM / RIMM slots?
And many (most?) Dell computers are just Intel motherboards, built / customized to Dell specs. I have 1 older Dell with RDRAM and RAM speed tests showed it was truly impressive for its time period.
I mostly just remember lawsuits, dragging down technology development / advancement, and other technologies being enhanced such that RDRAM was lost in the fray.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Revek on Wednesday April 27 2022, @07:42PM
Oh I remember them After a few years they would float through with people asking for more ram to replace the blank in the slot. You would tell them the price and they would quickly decided on something more standard.
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 28 2022, @04:55AM
The Nintendo 64 chose RDRAM for the same reason to reduce pressure on their unified memory model at the cost of higher latency. The PS2 also used RDRAM due to the massive amount of bandwidth it provided with little downside thanks to their hybrid heterogeneous platform. Big iron designs also experimented with RDRAM due to NUMA and locality considerations. RDRAM may not have been the best choice for all circumstances but easily blew away the competition in the right ones.