• @[email protected]
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    20 days ago

    Holy moly this is awesome! I am in for the 128GB SKU.

    That’s 96GB of usable VRAM! And way more CPU bandwidth than any desktop Zen chip.

    I know people are going to complain about non upgradable memory, but you can just replace the board, and in this case it’s so worth it for the speed/power efficiency. This isn’t artificial crippling, it physically has to be soldered, at least until LPCAMM catches on.

    My only ask would be a full X16 (or at least a physical X16/electrical x8) PCIe slot or breakout ribbon. X4 would be a bit of a bottleneck for some GPUs/workloads… Does Strix Halo even support that?

    • @[email protected]
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      2920 days ago

      I understand the memory constraints but it does feel weird for framework, is all I have to say. But that’s also the general trajectory of computing from what it seems. I really want lpcamm to catch on!

      • @[email protected]
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        3420 days ago

        Apparently Framework did try to get AMD to use LPCAMM, but it just didn’t work from a signal integrity standpoint at the kind of speeds they need to run the memory at.

          • Avid Amoeba
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            20 days ago

            My AM5 system doesn’t post with 128GB of 5600 DDR5 at higher than 4400 at JEDEC timings and voltage. 2 DIMMs are fine. 4 DIMMs… rip. So I’d say the present of DIMMs is already a bit shaky. DIMMs are great for lots of cheap RAM. I paid a lot less than what I’d have to pay for the equivalent size of RAM in a Framework desktop.

      • @[email protected]
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        20 days ago

        Eventually most system RAM will have to be packaged anyway. Physics dictates that one pays a penalty going over pins and mobo traces, and it gets more severe with every advancement.

        It’s possible that external RAM will eventually evolve into a “2nd tier” of system memory, for background processes, spillover, inactive programs/data, things like that.

          • @[email protected]
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            110 days ago

            Keep in mind that it would be pretty slow, as it doesn’t make sense to burn power and die area on a wide secondary bus.

    • @[email protected]
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      820 days ago

      What’s a SKU? Google just says “Stock Keeping Unit”, but I don’t think that’s correct in this context.

    • adr1an
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      219 days ago

      How did you get from 128 GiB of RAM, as the reported specs, to 96 VRAM ?

      • @[email protected]
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        419 days ago

        “VRAM” has to be allocated to the integrated GPU in the BIOS, and reports (and previous platforms) suggest the max one can allocate is 96GB, or 3/4 of it.