G.Skill Announces 16GB Unbuffered Modules: 128GB Kit at DDR4-2800
by Ian Cutress on April 24, 2015 2:57 PM EST
One of the more important announcements this year in the world of DRAM has been the march towards 16GB un-buffered modules. We saw last year Intelligent Memory launch some for DDR3, but due to other issues they only worked out-of-the-box on AMD and Atom platforms and were not widely available. At CES we saw Corsair place an interesting image on one of their displays, indicating that DDR4 modules at 16GB a piece were coming. Today, G.Skill formalises this with the announcement of a 128GB memory kit for X99.
G.Skill has worked with Samsung in order to produce modules rated for DDR4-2800 at 16-16-16. These 8Gb ICs are produced at 20nm, and while the average user has little need for 128GB, X99 is aimed more at the prosumer market which can have exorbitant memory requirements – previously the only way to hit 128GB on a single socket was with RDIMMs and Xeon processors which have a substantial cost.
At this point in time, G.Skill is showing that DDR4-2800 with 128GB works with the ASUS X99 Rampage V Extreme, although the XMP profile should allow use on other motherboards. Personally I would suggest that X99 users ensure they have the latest BIOS update before installing these modules, should they have any additional sub-timing parameters needed. I would also expect that as other manufacturers get these modules in to test, validation lists and QVL will be updated.
As this is an announcement rather than a launch, G.Skill hasn’t released pricing or a date yet. Based on previous experience this usually means we will have to wait between 2-6 weeks before they go on sale. It is worth noting that Computex is in early June, and thus a launch around that time might be expected. A current 8x8GB DDR4-2800 kit costs $790, so I wouldn't be surprised if this kit easily doubles that. We should start seeing slower kits at DDR4-2133 for less over the summer, if this announcement is anything to go by.
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LukaP - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Could we, please, stop inflating the DDR4 prices? First it was the fact intel released x99 early and there was limited supply. then it was the new memory tech, What is it now, after half a year, and with 2 consumer platforms being on the way to use DDR4?Kjella - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Because they can. The market that is unhappy with 8GB/stick of 2GHz+ DDR3 is really, really slim. The only reason people are buying DDR4 is because they have to in order to run the X99 platform, they don't have a choice. There's no second hand market of people looking to double up either, basically they can sit back and watch the market sell their product.I also think they seriously burned themselves on building too much capacity ~2 years ago leading to price dumping of DDR3, this time I expect them to err on the side of caution. They won't build more capacity until there's more demand and X99 is after all a very slim platform. It's a spin-off of Intel's Xeons, it would never exist on its own. And the competition in that segment is a flat out zero, they don't have to compete with anyone but themselves.
extide - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Don't forget about the ACTUAL Xeon's using DDR4... I am sure that is a pretty decent size market, much bigger than the X99 users, at least.Zok - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
Except those Xeons will be be using RDIMMs - a market with much more profit margin than UDIMM. Manufacturers will be more inclined to use their DDR4 chips in RDIM modules than in UDIMM. Until there is excess capacity and/or greater growth in the UDIMM market to substanciate a change to UDIMM (next-gen mainstream Intel chipsets), expect most manufacturers to support RDIMM over UDIMM.DanNeely - Friday, April 24, 2015 - link
As long as DDR4 is only used in premium systems it's going to have a premium price. Parity won't happen until you can find it in a $500 best buy special. That in turn will only happen when Intel starts selling mass market DDR4 only CPUs. Mainstream SkyLake will have both DDR3 and DDR4 controllers; so the soonest we could see it happen would be with CannonLake next year. However I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up waiting until the new socket the year after.MapRef41N93W - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
DDR4 is inflated? You can buy 16 gigs of DDR4-3000 for $200 right now. Meanwhile 8 gigs of DDR3-3000 would run you over $250 alone. People really need to stop saying DDR4 is inflated when prices have fallen by 50-60% since x99 launched. Once Skylake comes out prepare to see prices drop even more.yuhong - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
Except that most people don't buy the highest speeds.mlkmade - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
so they'd by the even cheaper lower speeds.great counter-point
smilingcrow - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
The cheapest DDR3 is much cheaper than the cheapest DDR4; that's the simple point.Hardly anyone cares about 3,000MHz RAM and rightly so.
willis936 - Saturday, April 25, 2015 - link
The people buying quad channel systems do and rightly so.