SMART Modular Add-In Cards Now Listed on CXL Consortium Integrators' List

[btarunr]

SMART Modular Technologies, Inc. ("SMART"), a Penguin Solutions, Inc. brand (Nasdaq: PENG) and a global leader in integrated memory solutions, solid-state drives, and hybrid storage products, today announced that its 4-DIMM and 8-DIMM CXL (Compute Express Link ) memory Add-in Cards (AICs) have successfully passed CXL 2.0 compliance testing. These products are now officially listed on the CXL Consortium's Integrators' List, marking a significant milestone in the company's commitment to delivering high-quality, interoperable memory solutions.

The inclusion of SMART Modular Technologies' products on the CXL Integrator's List underscores the company's dedication to adhering to industry standards and ensuring compatibility across a wide range of computing environments. The CXL Compliance Program, developed by the CXL Consortium, provides members with opportunities to test the functionality and interoperability of their products as defined in the CXL specification. This achievement not only highlights SMART Modular Technologies' technical expertise, but also reinforces its role as a leader in advancing integrated memory technology.



"Achieving CXL compliance is a testament to our team's hard work and dedication to innovation," stated Andy Mills, vice president of advanced product development at SMART Modular Technologies. "Our 4-DIMM and 8-DIMM CXL memory Add-in Cards are designed to meet the evolving needs of our customers, and this recognition further validates our commitment to providing cutting-edge solutions with enhanced performance and reliability."

As the demand for high-speed data processing continues to grow, SMART Modular Technologies remains at the forefront of delivering advanced memory solutions that help drive efficiency and performance in modern computing systems.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Wirko]

In before anyone asks the obvious:

No.

 

[ScaLibBDP]

>>AIC Add In Cards CXA-4F1W and CXA-8F2W

I've sent a request to get prices for CXL Standard Memory Expansion cards CXA-4F1W and CXA-8F2W. Let's wait for a response from the company.

Also, I regret to see that Datasheets for these two cards are Not available on their website for download and a customer needs to submit another request.

PS: That topic was discussed on TPU a couple of times in 2024. My opinion is that prices for CXL Memory Expansion cards are too high for a widespread adoption.

 

[L'Eliminateur]

>>AIC Add In Cards CXA-4F1W and CXA-8F2W

I've sent a request to get prices for CXL Standard Memory Expansion cards CXA-4F1W and CXA-8F2W. Let's wait for a response from the company.

Also, I regret to see that Datasheets for these two cards are Not available on their website for download and a customer needs to submit another request.

PS: That topic was discussed on TPU a couple of times in 2024. My opinion is that prices for CXL Memory Expansion cards are too high for a widespread adoption.

The whole idea behind CXL memory expansion is to reuse the old DDR4 from your decommissioned servers at a super cheap price, if the AIC have ridiculous pricing then this is pretty much dead in the water.

 

[InVasMani]

It's a modern I-RAM done properly and not half baked on a SATA limited interconnection. If they could actually sell these at reasonable cost plenty of people would get one for the added memory bandwidth to tap into.

 

[L'Eliminateur]

It's a modern I-RAM done properly and not half baked on a SATA limited interconnection. If they could actually sell these at reasonable cost plenty of people would get one for the added memory bandwidth to tap into.

it's not for added memory bw(quite the opposite, PCIe is dog-slow for ram) it's for adding ungodly amounts of ram once you filled all the DIMM slots with the biggest ram you could afford.
And then manage it via tiering in software/firmware via NUMA fuckery and hints

 

[InVasMani]

Once it's been transferred over the bus itself though it's fine in terms of speed as a whole and much faster than M.2 storage options. Yes extending capacity is the other part and because memory bandwidth and I/O is better. The random I/O uplift over M.2 storage is probably real kicker. I mean PCIE isn't ram it's interface bus you traverse over and yeah it's a bottleneck, but temporary slow down if you have sufficient capacity that you don't need to transfer data over PCIE too routinely.

 

[L'Eliminateur]

Once it's been transferred over the bus itself though it's fine in terms of speed as a whole and much faster than M.2 storage options. Yes extending capacity is the other part and because memory bandwidth and I/O is better. The random I/O uplift over M.2 storage is probably real kicker. I mean PCIE isn't ram it's interface bus you traverse over and yeah it's a bottleneck, but temporary slow down if you have sufficient capacity that you don't need to transfer data over PCIE too routinely.

you're comparing apples to oranges, m2 is storage, CXL has absolutely nothing to do with storage so it's not comparable at all, just like m2 cannot be compared to ram. This is not a ramdisk or anything of the sort, it's not a storage object and it's not presented to the system as such, it's cache-coherent CPU RAM.

 

[InVasMani]

If it holds data it's form of storage in it's own right be it cache, memory, or standard storage types. It's still very much like a modern greatly improved I-RAM not sure what you're trying to argue about. You're taking a PCIE slot and dedicating it to system memory to use for I/O, bandwidth, and capacity that's faster than conventional storage. I don't give a damn what you want to label it.

 

[L'Eliminateur]

If it holds data it's form of storage in it's own right be it cache, memory, or standard storage types. It's still very much like a modern greatly improved I-RAM not sure what you're trying to argue about. You're taking a PCIE slot and dedicating it to system memory to use for I/O, bandwidth, and capacity that's faster than conventional storage. I don't give a damn what you want to label it.

no, it's not, this is not a block storage device, as i've said, that iram is a "ramdisk"(presented as a SSD), this is NOT a ramdisk nor disk of any kind, it does not present to the system as BLOCK STORAGE, it's not what "I" want to label it as, it's about what does it do that's why it's not measured in "IOPS" or anything of the sort as CXL-memory is system memory(RAM, directly addressable), not block storage.

 

[InVasMani]

I don't want to argue for 10 pages over what your idea of what qualifies as storage is or some other nitpick nonsense over me looking at that and feeling like hey that's a modern I-RAM that's less ***** designed today.

 

[L'Eliminateur]

I don't want to argue for 10 pages over what your idea of what qualifies as storage is or some other nitpick nonsense over me looking at that and feeling like hey that's a modern I-RAM that's less ***** designed today.

it's not an argument and it's not my idea, read the standard and the specification. ti's NOT block storage.

iram is like an SSD, it's BLOCK STORAGE where you put files and a filesystem, CXL RAM is RAM capacity extension, appears as system ram transparently, you CANT put files in it or anything of the sort(not without ramdisk software but that's another thing altogether and does not change the device type).

 

[InVasMani]

I'm not claiming CXL to be block storage. The contents of cache or memory can still be classified as data storage though just the same irrespective of a ram disk or block storage. The point of the I-RAM was to leverage fast memory to make data faster which is same point of CXL in essence. There is really no point in discussing this any further. I know it's seen and treated as "system memory" I get that well enough.

 

[ScaLibBDP]

>>AIC Add In Cards CXA-4F1W and CXA-8F2W

I've sent a request to get prices for CXL Standard Memory Expansion cards CXA-4F1W and CXA-8F2W. Let's wait for a response from the company.

Also, I regret to see that Datasheets for these two cards are Not available on their website for download and a customer needs to submit another request.

PS: That topic was discussed on TPU a couple of times in 2024. My opinion is that prices for CXL Memory Expansion cards are too high for a widespread adoption.

No any responses from the company.

Here are some details from MemVerge website instead ( 4TB and 8TB configurations are expensive );

The whole idea behind CXL memory expansion is to reuse the old DDR4 from your decommissioned servers at a super cheap price, if the AIC have ridiculous pricing then this is pretty much dead in the water.

"Communicated" with Microsoft Copilot and here is a log of my "conversation":

< My Prompt > CXL Memory Expander price

< Copilot response > The price of Samsung's CXL Memory Expander 2.0 hasn't been officially disclosed yet. However, considering the advanced technology and the fact that standard DDR5 memory starts at over $200 per 32GB DIMM, it's likely to be quite expensive. Some estimates suggest it could cost significantly more than $3,200 for 512GB, given the additional hardware and special nature of the Memory Expander.

 

[bushlin]

I'm not claiming CXL to be block storage. The contents of cache or memory can still be classified as data storage though just the same irrespective of a ram disk or block storage. The point of the I-RAM was to leverage fast memory to make data faster which is same point of CXL in essence. There is really no point in discussing this any further. I know it's seen and treated as "system memory" I get that well enough.

Well, you could boot from an i-RAM, it even had a battery backup; it was designed to operate and be recognised as a block storage device. I would back up the notion that the CXL device in question is not this.

I agree the i-RAM was limited by it's already out-of-date at release 150MB/s SATA interface. However, couldn't help noticing:

I don't want to argue for 10 pages...

...There is really no point in discussing this any further...

 

[InVasMani]

I'm not about to beat a dead horse on this subject I know the I-Ram isn't a exact replica or clone of CXL or more the CXL a replica or clone of a I-Ram either way there are still parallels between the two especially at quick look with both populating many memory DIMM's being a key function of the devices. So sure it's not CXL, but does have things in common with it and was a precursor to it even if design, function, and performance differ a good bit and they should from a device 20 something years ago.

 

[ScaLibBDP]

>>AIC Add In Cards CXA-4F1W and CXA-8F2W

I've sent a request to get prices for CXL Standard Memory Expansion cards CXA-4F1W and CXA-8F2W. Let's wait for a response from the company.

Also, I regret to see that Datasheets for these two cards are Not available on their website for download and a customer needs to submit another request.

PS: That topic was discussed on TPU a couple of times in 2024. My opinion is that prices for CXL Memory Expansion cards are too high for a widespread adoption.

Finally received a response from the company and... they've asked for NDA!

My conclusion is with a such level of secrecy all these CXL solutions will work only for Big Data Processing companies and prices will be very high, that is, from a couple of thousands dollars for the card.

PS: It took 8 days for the company to respond.

 

[InVasMani]

The fact that we aren't seeing CXL products cheap already and readily advertised or like arriving soon is a good indication that it's not being targeted for the consumer market space any time immediately.

 

[ScaLibBDP]

The fact that we aren't seeing CXL products cheap already and readily advertised or like arriving soon is a good indication that it's not being targeted for the consumer market space any time immediately.

Finally found and these cards are available on Mouser website.

SMART Modular Technologies
CXL 4-DIMM & 8-DIMM Add-In Cards ( AICs )

www.mouser.com/new/smart-modular/smart-modular-technologies-cxl-aics
www.mouser.com/c/?marcom=102560545

4-DIMM CXL DDR5 STXPL256GMC4RD5 with 4 64GB ( 256 GB total ) DDR5-5600 RDIMMs $ 3,139.75 USD
8-DIMM CXL DDR5 STXPL512GAA8RD5 with 8 64GB ( 512 GB total ) DDR5-5600 RDIMMs $ 5,547.68 USD

In case of a regular consumer it is cheaper to buy a motherboard with as many as possible DIMM slots.

 

[Rob_1]

...

4-DIMM CXL DDR5 STXPL256GMC4RD5 with 4 64GB ( 256 GB total ) DDR5-5600 RDIMMs $ 3,139.75 USD
8-DIMM CXL DDR5 STXPL512GAA8RD5 with 8 64GB ( 512 GB total ) DDR5-5600 RDIMMs $ 5,547.68 USD

In case of a regular consumer it is cheaper to buy a motherboard with as many as possible DIMM slots.

At those prices you could buy a dual processor motherboard and an extra processor (or half the size, for example: want 32 cores total 9355P for ~U$3K (all prices 1K/tray), buy two 9135 for U$1241 each or two 9115 for U$726; giving a total of 32 cores, and maybe a bonus for certain software licenses limited to 16 cores). Add the cost of the more expensive motherboard, and double the cost for water cooling if you're doing that, maybe a bit bigger chassis than you planned on buying.

You might get 32GB DDR5 for ~U$170 each, times 24 (12 DIMM per CPU) = U$4080 for 768GB.

5,547.68−4,080=1,467.68 --- That's enough to pay for an extra CPU and either the water-cooling or better motherboard and bigger chassis. Better latency that a CXL PCIe card. 32GB is quite small, but 128GB sticks cost several times as much; though you'd certainly have a lot of memory. You could stick with the 32GB sticks and get a couple of 9335's (32 cores) for U$3178 (1K/tray prices) and have 64 cores total, instead of buying a 9555P for U$7983; a savings of 7,983−(3,178×2)=1,627.

They (Smart Modular Technologies) didn't research the alternatives when they came up with the pricing. When there's a few better and less expensive ways to go their card only becomes interesting when you've tried the alternatives already (and need even more memory, without buying 512GB sticks). But they'll need to sell their card unpopulated; and for no more than a few hundred dollars (maybe several).