 |
 |
unbuffered RAM in early 2008 Mac Pro?
|
|
|
|
|
Senior User
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: London
Status:
Offline
|
|
Hi All,
The issue: buffered vs. unbuffered RAM for an early 2008 Mac Pro.
My photoshop efficiency indicator is down around 80% for my typical work, so I'm going to drop some RAM in the last two free slots in my Mac Pro (got 8GB at the moment, going to move to at least 12GB). fyi: I've optimised as much as I can, with the help of this very good page from Adobe.
This machine is an early 2008 quad-core Xenon, and it takes 800MHz DDR2 ram modules. A quick visit to Crucial has them recommending buffered RAM modules, while I see that unbuffered RAM modules are far cheaper (from ebuyer.co.uk). I can't seem to find a requirement for buffered RAM modules for this machine, can anybody tell me if I can save lots of ££ and safely use unbuffered RAM modules?
Thanks in advance for any help.
Chas
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
Status:
Offline
|
|
The original Mac Pros required buffered RAM as far as I know.
|
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Senior User
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: London
Status:
Offline
|
|
Thanks for that info, much appreciated. I wonder why the big price difference?
Cheers!
Chas
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Clinically Insane
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Los Angeles
Status:
Offline
|
|
Oh, you're welcome even though I didn't give you much info. 
Why the price difference? It's a more complex module that fewer computers used. The Mac Pro may have been the only mainstream PC to require it. Less demand, more expensive, less supply = higher price.
|
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Senior User
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: London
Status:
Offline
|
|
"much" info, no, "enough" info, yes :-)
As for the reasons behind the price difference: rats and double-rats!
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Moderator  Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Status:
Offline
|
|
Originally Posted by Big Mac 
Oh, you're welcome even though I didn't give you much info.
Why the price difference? It's a more complex module that fewer computers used. The Mac Pro may have been the only mainstream PC to require it. Less demand, more expensive, less supply = higher price.
All Xeons of those series (5100-5400) required FB-DIMMs. FB-DIMMs were an attempt by Intel to introduce a new memory system with higher RAM ceiling, higher max RAM bandwidth, dedicated RAM bandwidth per socket (the FSB setup used an aggregate system bandwidth shared by all sockets) and cheaper motherboards, at the cost of more expensive RAM chips, high energy demands and higher latency. The attempt basically failed, mainly because of the high latency. With the Nehalem generation (Xeon 5500 and 3400 series and up), Intel gave up and switched to regular unbuffered RAM. DDR3 let them do so without sacrificing memory bandwidth compared to DDR2 FB-DIMM. The new integrated memory controller and the NUMA setup let them keep memory bandwidth per socket while dropping the latency significantly. Three memory channels per socket mitigated the lower RAM ceiling some. Motherboards became more expensive, but memory upgrades became cheaper.
|
|
The low-end Mac Pro is the most overpriced Mac since the IIvx
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Senior User
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: London
Status:
Offline
|
|
Wisdom! Always nice to know the full reasons behind seemingly illogical specifications.
My thanks.
Chas
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 
|
|
|
Forum Rules
|
|
|
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Top
