Mac Pro Built on Dead-End Tech????

I haven't seen anyone make mention of this yet, so I thought I would post some thoughts after reading about how Intel has decided to dump support for the very expensive FB-DIMMs. According to The Inquirer (i know I know, but they've been right alot lately)

Intel's Oakley après Bensley will deck FB-DIMMs

No FB-DIMMs here

By Charlie Demerjian: Friday 22 September 2006, 07:53
WE TOLD YOU about Intel's unceremonious dumping of FB-DIMMs a bit ago, but how it was going to start to end was an open question.

The end point is known, 90% of the platforms will be decked down and relegated to the MP segment, but where to begin? That is called Oakley, the successor to Bensley.

Oakley is the Xeon DP platform set to debut in Q3/07 or so, and it looks to not have FBDs as standard equipment. An educated guess is that Intel will continue to provide Bensley for a while. We also hear rumours of a Blackford II Duo Core, so I would think Intel is not going to limit options. In any case, now we know the beginning of the end. µ

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So, with that being said, I wonder if Apple will switch to a different memory type in the future?

Hmm.....

With Intel ending support for FB-DIMM, Apple will undoubtedly be forced to use whichever memory technology Intel decides to go with; DDR2 currently and DDR3 in the later future.

This is good news for Mac users. Losing FB Dimms will cut power consumption and increase memory performance.

Ah well, at least they aren't using rambus chips

Man, I have not heard that name in a long time. Good old Rambus. Intel had a problem shaking them but was glad when they did. It was Rambus the Company who were the bad ones and not the tech itself, but the whole thing left a BAD taste in my mouth for any of it. I am sure if Intel drops FD then Apple will change over to DDR2.

Aptmunich said:

Ah well, at least they aren't using rambus chips

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My old Dell had RDRIMMS in it...... PC1066 I beleive. But that was years ago.

Yes, RDRAM was a disaster, but I think the performance problem had more to do with the Pentium 4 not having enough power to take advantage of all the extra memory bandwidth. They were trying to access 1066MHz memory through a 100MHz (and later 400MHz on the Pentium 4) frontside bus, so what could they have expected?

Rambus's latest XDR-DRAM and soon to be XDR2-DRAM is quite an interesting technology. The problem with RDRAM was that the memory chips had such a high latency that the added clock speed hardly had any advantage at all with PC architecture. You really had to have a specialized application to really take advantage of RDRAM. With XDR/XDR2-DRAM, the memory latency problem is solved and the chips now have latency similar to standard DDR2 modules. Not to mention clock speed has upped to a jaw-dropping 3.2GHz and there's room to ramp up to an amazing 8.0GHz. This is quite an interesting technology for the taker, but you also have to remember there will never be a relationship between Intel and Rambus because of the lawsuit, and AMD has heavily invested in pioneering the future of DDR3 memory modules. If there was a PC architecture (IBM Cell anyone?) that had the power to take advantage of the mounds of memory bandwidth provided by XDR/XDR2, it would certainly be an amazing memory technology. Until then, it will be used for specialty applications that can take advantage of it.

OMG!!!111!!!!!11

You mean to tell me that technology doesn't last forever?...

...and that sometimes components and things are replaced, updated, upgraded and discontinued... even after a manufacturer has used them in a current lineup??...

:black:



Seriously... I would hardly go so extreme as to say that any company is using "dead end tech" in their products. The simple fact is that almost any technology will become obsolete or replaced at some point in its life-cycle. And yes, it isn't unheard of for something to go, as you call it, "dead end" shortly after it is introduced.

Well, given the facts as we know them now, I think "dead end" was the proper term. I doubt Apple had known of Intel's plan to abandon the tech and learned alongside everyone else. But now Apple has a chance here to switch to a less expensive DDR2 option. They could pass that savings to customers in the form of lower prices. Apple would be able to lower the price further to draw in some of those people who are on the edge of buying, but are put off by the high memory prices.

Not speaking of myself, of course. I intend to get one in January - FBDIMMS or not.