Gigabyte i-RAM (OcUK has it in stock)

nikebee · 9 May 2006 at 23:55

a heads up for those who want the fastest stuff around...

OcUK have got Gigabyte's i-RAM in stock, a hefty pricetag for something that on its own... does nothing, since you'd need to get some ram for it (max of 4GB too)... still would be nice for a windows install at least.

might get one in a few weeks (and thats a big might) and then get some OcUK value ram for it to run off too... i don't imagine tight timings will have any difference on these things :confused:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_SATA_RAID_424.html#ahd_2d000_2dgi

james32 · 10 May 2006 at 00:03

Gigabyte i-RAM 2 will be here shortly, and next year you will problay see flash hard drives in laptops so its not worth the money

Gigabyte i-RAM 2 will be DDR2 + sata2 3Gb/s and will take upto 8gb and 16gb
of memory.

nikebee · 10 May 2006 at 00:13

james32 said:
Gigabyte i-RAM 2 will be here shortly, and next year you will problay see flash hard drives in laptops so its not worth the money

Gigabyte i-RAM 2 will be DDR2 + sata2 3Gb/s and will take upto 8gb and 16gb
of memory.

thats just rumors about i-RAM 2 as far as i know, nothing confirmed as of yet...
just googled it too, can only find ONE website with info about it on, all the others talk about this website or link to it. :-/

james32 · 10 May 2006 at 00:19

yeh think its been delayed a few months more
but i still reckon we will start to see flash 30gb hard discs next year in laptops
iam sure samsung have developed a 30gb flash hard drive.

Ice Tea · 10 May 2006 at 00:32

£176.19

That can't be right the whole idea of the card was it was going to be cheap
and sold worldwide for less than $150.

In the USA they are about $115 wich is about £62

?

nikebee · 10 May 2006 at 00:35

Ice Tea said:
£176.19

That can't be right the whole idea of the card was it was going to be cheap
and sold worldwide for less than $150.

In the USA they are about $115 wich is about £62

?

all UK PC mags have expected prices to be high... which is ridiculous considering US pricing as you said...
your looking at £300+ just for the controller card and 4GB of ram/storage :eek:

edit: just reading one of the AnandTech reviews (with the links to where to buy) and one has it for as little as $79.99

might purchase one, get it sent to my brother (lives in denver) and ask him to ship it over

FatRakoon · 10 May 2006 at 02:19

I too have asked about shipping a couple over... I fancy having a look at whether they can RAID???

Only one real way to find out eh?

I am hoping to have mine in about a week. I have 4 sticks of 1GB OCZ RAM that I hope to use, and maybe if they do RAID ( Would like them to RAID as a C: but under Software RAID will at least let me play for sure? ) and this will get me my 4GB at least.

Will let you know the score as and when.

ChrisLX200 · 10 May 2006 at 07:27

FatRakoon said:
I too have asked about shipping a couple over... I fancy having a look at whether they can RAID???

Only one real way to find out eh?

I am hoping to have mine in about a week. I have 4 sticks of 1GB OCZ RAM that I hope to use, and maybe if they do RAID ( Would like them to RAID as a C: but under Software RAID will at least let me play for sure? ) and this will get me my 4GB at least.

Will let you know the score as and when.

Don't see how RAID would benefit a solid-state drive myself, then again, it's a bit early in the morning so maybe I'm missing something

KiNETiK · 10 May 2006 at 13:29

They can be raided and it does make a difference, i remember reading some reviews a few months back when they first suraced.. Can't remember details now though!

nikebee · 10 May 2006 at 16:11

ChrisLX200 said:
Don't see how RAID would benefit a solid-state drive myself, then again, it's a bit early in the morning so maybe I'm missing something

i'd imagine RAID would have benefits not really fot speed, but more for protection (having a second i-RAM drive to back up the original for example).

AMDPower · 10 May 2006 at 18:54

can you use any 1 gig ram modules with this i-RAM?

would it be best to go with some low latency ram, or does it not make a difference? if not might get some gail value ram and try one.

locutus12 · 10 May 2006 at 19:25

ah, static ram boards

old technology revamped

nikebee · 10 May 2006 at 20:51

AMDPower said:
can you use any 1 gig ram modules with this i-RAM?

would it be best to go with some low latency ram, or does it not make a difference? if not might get some gail value ram and try one.

its reported that certain brands dont work 100% well with it (this months CustomPC) but it doesn't say what... whilst other mags (PC Format) don't mention anything.

personally when i get mine from the states i'm gonna be chucking either some GeIL Value Ram or some of the OcUK rebadged stuff in it.

FatRakoon · 10 May 2006 at 20:57

locutus12 said:
ah, static ram boards old technology revamped

Well, yes, it is actually.

I have got a nice one on my old Atari TT

The TT is SCSI. It has no IDE abilities, but thats fine. I have a 256MB Compact Flash Card, connected to an IDE adapter, this IDE adapter, is connected to an IDE-SCSI Adapter, and this SCSI Card is then connected to my SCSI Line, and well, blow me, but it works.

Now, on the Atari, its not like a PC, and its files are miniscule in comparison, and normal HDs are fairly slow on them anyway compared to the PC ( They are abotu on par with an old 486 for those who remember them ) but a 256MB Drive C: is, for an Atari fairly massive, and its possibly a tad quicker than a HD.

When I knew this idea worked, I have got myself another one and that has a 512MB one on, and thats also running sweet as a nut...

When oyu consider what you can already get, the idea of this card no longer seems like such a new idea, and the price isnt all that much cop especially as you also need to buy the ram for it.

I am lucky in that I have a fair few PCs and so I already have plenty of RAM spare, so if I want to have a play with knocking a pair of them up to 8GB ( 4 + 4 for those who cant be bothered to do the math ), I hope that its not too concerned about mixing RAM cos I got 10 sticks of 1GB but only 4+2+2+1+1 of mixed variety

Kamakazie! · 11 May 2006 at 00:57

james32 said:
i still reckon we will start to see flash 30gb hard discs next year in laptops
iam sure samsung have developed a 30gb flash hard drive.

yeah Samsung have developed one. However, i dont get why that is relevant to this?
I thought flash memory had pretty slow transfer speeds.. like 20mb/s for the absolute fastest SD cards. With memory stick duo being up at the 80mb/s.

Is it the seek times that make a difference or something because most hard drives will keep up with this sorta transfer speed over the OS loading time.

FatRakoon · 11 May 2006 at 01:03

In the case of my old Atari, with its HDs already being slow anyway, using a CF Card as a HD isnt a speed issue.

With PCs however, I have tried it in a PC, and for DOS / Win3.11 its fine... Hell its useable for Win95 too, but I have used a 2MB card from my mate, to install XP on, and its bloody attrocious.

Tech is improving every few seconds though, and its only time before we will all be using them, and saying things like "Do you remember when we were stuck with using SataII?" and "How did we do it? Its so slow" Just like many of us remember using 8 inch floppies and tapes... Its only around the corner.

nikebee · 11 May 2006 at 02:23

FatRakoon said:
In the case of my old Atari, with its HDs already being slow anyway, using a CF Card as a HD isnt a speed issue.

With PCs however, I have tried it in a PC, and for DOS / Win3.11 its fine... Hell its useable for Win95 too, but I have used a 2MB card from my mate, to install XP on, and its bloody attrocious.

Tech is improving every few seconds though, and its only time before we will all be using them, and saying things like "Do you remember when we were stuck with using SataII?" and "How did we do it? Its so slow" Just like many of us remember using 8 inch floppies and tapes... Its only around the corner.

was there a time when the internet wasn't around too... :eek:

how did you talk to people.... no... wait... how did you go onto OcUK forums :eek:

nikebee · 11 May 2006 at 11:41

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/cgi-b...ek_Only_25.html#aHD_2d000_2dGI#aHD_2d000_2dGI
this week only for £117.44 inc VAT.

still a big amount compared to getting it from the US though

Kamakazie! · 11 May 2006 at 12:32

FatRakoon said:
Tech is improving every few seconds though, and its only time before we will all be using them, and saying things like "Do you remember when we were stuck with using SataII?" and "How did we do it? Its so slow" Just like many of us remember using 8 inch floppies and tapes... Its only around the corner.

For notebooks, i can see the attraction with speeds nearing those of slower disk drives and stupidly low power consumption, however i don't see Flash being used in desktops for a very long time, if ever. There will be newer technology, better suited to it by the time flash becomes viable imo. Spinning disks will definately be a thing of the past... but we won't see that for a good few years.
As for SATA2.... the fact thats its an interface capable of very very high speeds suggests that it will be with us for a very long time. Nothing out there even comes close to saturating a SATA2 connection.

cleanbluesky · 11 May 2006 at 17:46

I'm curious about this, if a person could source the card from the USA for sub £50 I think it would be worth using it with about 2gig of OcUK Value RAM just to intstall the OS...

If anyone sources one from USA, drop me an e-mail please...