Friday, December 31st 2021
ASUS is Working on a DDR4 RAM Adapter for DDR5 Motherboards
With the current short supply and maybe more importantly, the rather insane pricing for DDR5 memory, ASUS is working on what could be called a quick fix for the problem, an adapter that would allow DDR5 motherboard owners to put DDR4 memory in their motherboards. It's not what we'd call an elegant solution at this point, but it's said it'll be refined before it's ready for retail—if it ever enters the market—since apparently the engineer that developed the adapter doesn't always get to see his projects hit retail, as from our understanding he's responsible for a lot of the more unusual products from ASUS' ROG brand.
That said, considering that a lot of high-end Z690 motherboards only support DDR5, this might be an interim solution that makes sense for a lot of people until availability of DDR5 improves. There's some complexity in making the adapter work though, as not only does it need its own power regulation, since DDR4 memory doesn't have onboard power conversion components unlike DDR5, but there's also the 2x 32-bit vs 64-bit bus to take into consideration as well. On top of this, the DRAM traces are obviously extended, which could lead to instabilities, which is why it's apparently only tested with one type of memory right now, which appears to be G-Skill's Tridentz Royal. A further limitation of the adapter is that it requires a special UEFI version to be installed that allows DDR4 memory to be used, but this might be the smallest issue in this "skunk works" project from ASUS' ROG team.
Sources:
Bing on YouTube, via Anandtech
That said, considering that a lot of high-end Z690 motherboards only support DDR5, this might be an interim solution that makes sense for a lot of people until availability of DDR5 improves. There's some complexity in making the adapter work though, as not only does it need its own power regulation, since DDR4 memory doesn't have onboard power conversion components unlike DDR5, but there's also the 2x 32-bit vs 64-bit bus to take into consideration as well. On top of this, the DRAM traces are obviously extended, which could lead to instabilities, which is why it's apparently only tested with one type of memory right now, which appears to be G-Skill's Tridentz Royal. A further limitation of the adapter is that it requires a special UEFI version to be installed that allows DDR4 memory to be used, but this might be the smallest issue in this "skunk works" project from ASUS' ROG team.
108 Comments on ASUS is Working on a DDR4 RAM Adapter for DDR5 Motherboards
They obviously use RAM in some of their products, such as SSDs...As I mentioned in a different thread, apparently the RAM is made, the issue is that with the virus still spreading like mad, causing lockdowns and sick staff, the chip packaging plants are either being closed due to government regulations, or don't have sufficient staff to keep things running at a normal pace. This combined with a shortage of PMIC chips and some other key components are the main issues at hand. The city of Xi'an in the PRC for example is currently closed and people are apparently starving due to it, but this is also where Micron has at least one fab, which is further causing shortages of parts. Malaysia has had major lockdowns too and this is where a lot of the chip packaging is done. Taiwan is obviously unaffected, but only so much DRAM is being made and packaged in Taiwan. Not quite sure what the situation is in Korea right now, but I guess it's not great there either. So once there isn't a massive shitstorm going on, things should quickly improve.That is IF these adapters are ever made.
From Anandtech:
Inside each of the Alder Lake processors are memory controllers for both DDR5 and DDR4. Unlike previous generations, we’re unlikely to see motherboards supporting both types of memory. We understand that Intel has explicitly requested this – we didn’t see many retail combo boards in the DDR3/DDR4 era, so expect to see fewer this time around (although you can imagine someone will eventually do it).
There is a slight technical reason too – DDR5 uses onboard power management, while DDR4 requires that from the motherboard, something which is hard to implement without wholly independent traces for both.
If Intel is saying both cannot be done at the same time, then it’s likely that this is a unified DDR4+DDR5 controller that shares an amount of logic internally, but only one can be used at any one time
Source: www.anandtech.com/show/16959/intel-innovation-alder-lake-november-4th/4
The level of journalism and technical know-how, or simply just providing unbiased coverage of tech really took a downfall here at TPU...
It fit but without on the fans
What they need to do is make DDR4 versions of most of them if they can, which is expensive too, but its better than not selling any motherboards. DDR5 isn't all that much better right now anyway, and DDR5 won't be cheap or widely available at all in 2022, just hope they solder on the capacitors in the correct direction with them if they are made.
Maybe I'm missing something but is anyone actually suggesting you can run DDR4 and DDR5 simultaneously on the same board? How would that even work with the CPU running both Gear1 for DDR4 and Gear2 for DDR5? Presumably you'd need to use the lowest common denominator which would mean running Gear2 for DDR4.
Presumably even if it were technically possible, running DDR4 and DD4R5 simultaneously would result in the lowest common denominators throughout so you'd end up with the bandwidth of DDR4 with the latency of DDR5, all running at Gear2 for a final result of something that's probably worse than DDR3!
You would think if they did it in reverse making a DDR4 to DDR5 adapter they wouldn't have to worry about the onboard power conversion components because a DDR4 board would already have that part in place. The 2x 32-bit vs 64-bit bus is another matter. It's a shame they could do something like this and put a pair of M.2 slots on each side that work as a NVDIMM with the memory because that would be fire. I'll give this Frankenstein engineer credit where it's due though he/she is a daring innovator to attempt something this strange, but it's the sort of thing that can lead to other breakthrough's based loosely around it at the same time. You need someone to step outside the box to see what's possible outside the comforting confines of the box.
The Gigabyte VRM thing idk about that that looks insane it just looks like a accidental short circuit waiting to happen. I'd done some ghetto stuff with GPU's, but I'll draw the line in the sand in not doing that no matter how good that 2% overclock headroom is on liquid nitrogen. It's dodgy just looking at it. It's probably more intimidating than it looks, but you just try and Ebay that and explain how it wasn't for mining.
OK. Let me just reach into my wallet and give you another $100 for that privilege
So the adapter is nice if it's not gonna cost 200 dollars or something.