Friday, October 3rd 2008
Theory of DDR3 Voltage Limitations for Bloomfield Gains Ground
Nehalem does promise to be a processor to look out for, it would be Intel's next installment, post the successful Core 2 series processors. This time however, Intel made a core modification with the way the system handles memory. The Bloomfield processors house a massive 192-bit wide memory controller for supporting tri-channel DDR3 memory. It however was found that the controller could bring in limitations to the DIMM voltages that the system could support.
The retail version of ASUS P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition motherboard was unboxed by XFastest. Being the retail product, as usually, it comes with precautionary labels attached to parts of the motherboard. The one that covers the 6 DDR3 DIMM slots reads:
It could have implications on the current DDR3 memory market as well as you, if you happen to have DDR3 modules, which you plan to retain for use in the future platform, that operate above the said voltage. It also means that in the near future, we could be seeing memory sticks that facilitate overclocking at much lower voltages. From a technology standpoint, companies such as Samsung, Elpida, Micron, etc., are working on releasing DRAM chips based on newer silicon fabrication technologies, that operate at lower voltages.
The retail version of ASUS P6T Deluxe OC Palm Edition motherboard was unboxed by XFastest. Being the retail product, as usually, it comes with precautionary labels attached to parts of the motherboard. The one that covers the 6 DDR3 DIMM slots reads:
According to Intel CPU SPEC, DIMMs with voltage setting over 1.65V may damage the CPU permanently. We recommend you to install DIMMs with voltage setting below 1.65V.
89 Comments on Theory of DDR3 Voltage Limitations for Bloomfield Gains Ground
It's just like AMD cpus, if you crank too much vdimm on an AMD setup, you can damage the cpu. And it's not just 939, It will still happen on an AM2 cpu. It's just that DDR2 runs on much lower voltages than DDR1, and gave us much more headroom.
While 1.65V is not the optimal voltage for this to occur for an overclocker, the whole issue is still being blown out of proportion.
The CPU voltage and ram voltage arent hte same, the ram CONTROLLER voltage and ram voltage are. That just means theres a max safe ram voltage of 1.65v - it doesnt mean the CPU will be stuck there.
1.65V aint so bad, new, lower voltage ram will come out. To those who complain that their already bought DDR3 is useless... suck it up. you chose to blow your money on an unknown variable, it was your own decision to buy that ram.
I am not a AMD fanboy I just like to run whatever is best bang for buck at the time, I have a Intel setup at the moment and have had so for a year or so now, but I do feel when AMD move to DDR3 AM3+ they will be level pegging with Intel once again, its been a longtime comming, but non the less its heading this way..
If a Mobo maker wanted to, they could design their board with unlinked voltages. I think "chipset" was the wrong word to use there. But someone like Nvidia or Ati could make a nehalem board that uses whatever trichannel ram fits in the slots.
thats what i meant by "nvidia chipsets FTW" - not that theyre great MBs, but rather that alternative companies making mobos will put an end to intel's bullS%^ pretty quick.
EDIT: yeah i read that their division was one the way out. Which sucks... because i think the ddr3 linkage is in the inherent design of the X58 (if it is true) and that intel will continue to put limitations on the OCability of the cheper processors to make us splurge on the higher end models. bastards. My next build will be AMD out of sheer priciple if that happens.
AMD cpu has memory controller, and they still not support DDR3 yet. (Only In the future with AM3 CPU)
Intel cpu has memory controller too, but It already support DDR3.
I think both of them is pretty much the same, It just Intel is ahead of AMD about this.
As I said, I really don't think this is anything to worry about.
thats an intel board that INTEL was displaying for demo's. im beginning to doubt...
Other wise you could have a dead cpu/or/defective cpu that kills ram
or just dead ram.
What sucks is the DDR3 that they have been selling that is 2ghz requires 2v.
Then this new Intel system is triple channel not dual channel. So I don't know yet if it will even work in dual channel mode. And if they put 6 slots on the motherboard if you install 4 chips will that take it back down to single channel/dual channel mode that's something that could really be interesting. That's the information that I would like to learn.What about people with a 500usd set of ddr3 that runs on 1.9v 2.0v already in their machine?? Because Intel wanted to have the latest and greatest memory speeds with current chips......
<---system specs
2 sticks WILL run in dual channel.
4 sticks could either run triple channel for the first 3, or dual for all 4. I would assume intel would choose dual channel, due to the balanced performance. (current 775 chipsets can run 3 sticks, where only two are dual channel and the third runs slower, so its easy to assume the same tech could exist in core i7)
And are you sure about 3 chips in current 775 chips?