> They have excellent engineering resources - why didn't they just take their ARC cards and add more RAM to them? People are dropping $2K+ on the 5090 with 32GB and would surely pay $1200+ for an ARC with 32GB or even much more for one with 64GB or higher. Absolute performance wouldn't be the benchmark; being able to load larger models would make for excellent price/performance, for many lower-end uses.
This one also drives me bonkers, but my guess is that it doesn't capture that margin they want.
Intel seems to be kinda bad at starting from an 'underdog' standpoint in a market.
> Intel did the same with their only offering dual-memory channel and thus much lower bandwidth of CPU <-> RAM ; unless you are buying an expensive server, you only get 2 channels to RAM; Apple increased their RAM bandwidth significantly and as it turns out, customers liked that, and bought more Apple CPUs.
Apple has much tighter integration; i.e. they don't have sockets for the CPU or memory. What you buy is what you get unless you're brave enough to solder.
AMD provides a sort of in-between with Threadripper and it's pro variant, however it seems that they have a bit of a limitation on bandwidth based on CCDs for the low core count Pro models [0].
> Intel has to become "hungry" once more and stop their sedate, sclerotic ways. Maybe caring about their customers would help, too.
TBH I think whatever body (JEDEC I'd guess) needs to either make DDR6 128bit, or at the very least (and if even possible) work with memory controller folks to figure out a way to have a 'one stick, two channels' standard that simplifies board routing and keeps OEM usage simple.
It's really curious to me that over the last decade I've only dealt with one machine that only supported single channel, and the ones that 'were' single channel absolutely could have been dual channel but the OE could save a few bucks by going single channel due to the cost of two DIMMS vs one.
[0] - https://old.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1mcrx23/psa_the...
> TBH I think whatever body (JEDEC I'd guess) needs to either make DDR6 128bit
That would require twice the number of pins and traces on each DIMM with corresponding extra pins on the CPU package as well and associated interconnects which would add heat as well. You end up with similar problems when you increase the number of channels per DIMM. CPU packages are strained as it is; I don't think the tradeoffs are worth it to increase system memory bandwidth on consumer systems.
> That would require twice the number of pins
Fair, I'll admit I wrote this after a very long work day and forgot to refresh myself on what a DIMM's pinout was actually like.
That said, Maybe instead of a DIMM it would be better to switch to a PGA or even LGA?
> and traces on each DIMM
Well, Traces are a problem regardless, at the same time it seems that Apple has managed to solve the problem by going to surface mounted chips. That said maybe(?) something like a PGA or LGA would allow for traces to be more clustered in making it a little easier to handle trace length differences...
> I don't think the tradeoffs are worth it to increase system memory bandwidth on consumer systems.
Well, I'd assume that for consumer systems you'd just have one 'channel', since at that point it's 128 bit and the equivalent of dual channel DDR5.
> CPU packages are strained as it is
Apple has managed to provide some fairly wide options in the M series though, so what are they doing that the others are not (aside from that they are effectively using more but smaller channels)?
> Apple has managed to provide some fairly wide options in the M series though, so what are they doing that the others are not (aside from that they are effectively using more but smaller channels)?
They aren't using sockets. They are soldering it directly to the board. I figure that consumers aren't going to a buy a motherboard with a CPU and RAM soldered onto it. I could be wrong about that, but I wouldn't buy it.
They are also much more expensive. It's not that it can't be done since it is done with servers already -- it is that it can't be done for the price consumers want.