Discussion on consumer hardware progression

[Upgrayedd]

So my main question is why do we still use dual channel? What happened to triple channel? Why do we progress everywhere but there?

Pcie 4.0 seems like it came and went incredibly fast.
Display hardware is moving very fast.
Everything else seems to have progressed at a good pace but we've had 2 channels for memory on consumer hardware throughout it all.

It just seems crazy we have $500+ consumer cpus and $1000+ mobos with 2 channels.

 

[Onasi]

So my main question is why do we still use dual channel? What happened to triple channel? Why do we progress everywhere but there?

More expensive to implement on MoBos and arguably unnecessary for consumer tasks.

Pcie 4.0 seems like it came and went incredibly fast.

Yes. And PCI-e 5.0 is now here and also arguably has no use in said tasks. Gen 5 SSDs aren’t faster in practical terms outside of linear speeds and GPUs don’t scale (so far) beyond Gen 4 8x / Gen 3 16x.

 

[qxp]

Agreed. I think this is market segmentation to force anyone that needs more then a single web browser window to buy server chips.

 

[Gunbound]

Consumers also don't really need triple channel. It would probably go under utilized for most people. Also keeps costs down

 

[Upgrayedd]

Also keeps costs down

More expensive to implement on MoBos

costs are low for consumers right now? lol jokes aside though
I feel like this is more of a "keeps margins up" statement.

When was the last time you read an article about a quad channel CPU benchmarked and OC'd and thoroughly tested? I wouldn't even know if the statements about whether its really needed or useful can be answered.
"Probably" and "Arguably" don't really seem adequate, we've been saying things like that forever about everything. Remember when the mantra was 4cores and 8GB of RAM was the pinnacle and we'd never need more lol
You can find all sorts of modern reads on speed, rank and dimms per channel but nothing on a new quad channel.

 

[eidairaman1]

Consumers also don't really need triple channel. It would probably go under utilized for most people. Also keeps costs down

X58 anyone?

 

[Launcestonian]

So my main question is why do we still use dual channel? What happened to triple channel? Why do we progress everywhere but there?

Pcie 4.0 seems like it came and went incredibly fast.
Display hardware is moving very fast.
Everything else seems to have progressed at a good pace but we've had 2 channels for memory on consumer hardware throughout it all.

It just seems crazy we have $500+ consumer cpus and $1000+ mobos with 2 channels.

Need to do more research... each DDR5 channel has 2 sub channels, so effectively dual channel DDR5 rigs are really quad channel setups.

"Each DDR5 DIMM has two independent channels. Earlier DIMM generations featured only a single channel and one CA (Command/Address) bus controlling the whole memory module with its 64 (for non-ECC) or 72 (for ECC) data lines. Both subchannels on a DDR5 DIMM each have their own CA bus, controlling 32 bits for non-ECC memory and either 36 or 40 data lines for ECC memory, resulting in a total number of either 64, 72 or 80 data lines. The reduced bus width is compensated by a doubled minimum burst length of 16, which preserves the minimum access size of 64 bytes, which matches the cache line size used by modern x86 microprocessors."
Source

 

[Macro Device]

effectively dual channel DDR5 rigs are really quad channel setups.

Whilst true, it's four tiny channels. 64 bit (conventional channel, DDR4 downwards) VS IIRC 36 bit (DDR5).

X58 anyone?

Had an X58 build six years ago. Tested it with dual and triple channel modes and aside from a couple cases when I just ran out of RAM per se the difference was very subtle. Triple channel managed to lose in some gaming scenarios, probably because there wasn't that much need for bandwidth in the first place so increased latency ruined it all. Just my uneducated guess anyway.

Why do we progress everywhere but there?

More than 90% tasks running on a typical gaming/home/office machine are really low on bandwidth requirements and benefit much harder from lowered latency. Which is only possible with more simple architectures. In the ideal world, we'd only see single channel systems apart from those built for gaming on the iGPU but RAM sticks aren't powerful enough for that. Something along the lines of a single 5 GT/s stick that has CL of 12 (perhaps even 13 is enough) or something similar for that to be the case. One should leave 3+ channel configurations where they belong: advanced workstations and server machines.

 

[LabRat 891]

So my main question is why do we still use dual channel? What happened to triple channel? Why do we progress everywhere but there?

Pcie 4.0 seems like it came and went incredibly fast.
Display hardware is moving very fast.
Everything else seems to have progressed at a good pace but we've had 2 channels for memory on consumer hardware throughout it all.

It just seems crazy we have $500+ consumer cpus and $1000+ mobos with 2 channels.

As fast as things are moving, it feels like regression.

 

[freeagent]

You have to run tight timings on triple channel, like C6-C8. If you run C9 you have to run them fast, and you have to set QPI and uncore to match to get the most from it.

 

[Macro Device]

You have to run tight timings on triple channel, like C6-C8

C4 (rarely achievable at reasonable bandwidth) is the king there.

 

[qxp]

The big reason to go with multiple channels is RAM. Even the best Ryzen motherboard today is limited to 192 GB using expensive modules and two modules per channel. Would be nice to have multiple channels that you can populate with one module per channel and still get 256 GB or more.

 

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

When was the last time you read an article about a quad channel CPU benchmarked

https://www.servethehome.com/asrock-rack-6u8x-egs2-h200-nvidia-hgx-h200-ai-server-intel-xeon-review/

https://www.storagereview.com/review/lenovo-thinksystem-sr630-v4-review

https://www.storagereview.com/review/hpe-proliant-dl145-g11-review

https://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-sys-222h-tn-review-2u-intel-xeon-6-server-daputstor/

https://www.servethehome.com/ampere...supermicro-nvidia-broadcom-kioxia-server-cpu/

https://www.storagereview.com/review/supermicro-as-2115hv-tnrt-rack-workstation-review

it happens pretty regularly. More than anything, I think we've reached a place where workloads have diverged from "one pc to rule them all" and now have a lot of different ways to specialize a system. I love fancy, expensive, many channel memory and cpus as much as anyone. They are availible......you just gotta pay for them. Prices are high on everything. a 6 pack of beer is 10 dang dollars these days.....

 

[Macro Device]

a 6 pack of beer is 10 dang dollars these days

A 6-pack of sturdy abs is, however, still free. Things aren't THAT bad. xD

 

[DirtyDingusMcgee]

A 6-pack of sturdy abs is, however, still free. Things aren't THAT bad. xD

Fortunately, i have plenty of bullets to shoot myself in the face with if i ever feel like working out my abs.

 

[eidairaman1]

https://www.servethehome.com/asrock-rack-6u8x-egs2-h200-nvidia-hgx-h200-ai-server-intel-xeon-review/

https://www.storagereview.com/review/lenovo-thinksystem-sr630-v4-review

https://www.storagereview.com/review/hpe-proliant-dl145-g11-review

https://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-sys-222h-tn-review-2u-intel-xeon-6-server-daputstor/

https://www.servethehome.com/ampere...supermicro-nvidia-broadcom-kioxia-server-cpu/

https://www.storagereview.com/review/supermicro-as-2115hv-tnrt-rack-workstation-review

it happens pretty regularly. More than anything, I think we've reached a place where workloads have diverged from "one pc to rule them all" and now have a lot of different ways to specialize a system. I love fancy, expensive, many channel memory and cpus as much as anyone. They are availible......you just gotta pay for them. Prices are high on everything. a 6 pack of beer is 10 dang dollars these days.....

It seems ddr5 hedt is merged, but it would be nice to see hedt and epyc use the same exact socket without any weird stuff

 

[Macro Device]

Fortunately, i have plenty of bullets to shoot myself in the face with if i ever feel like working out my abs.

This is the most American statement I read this year.

 

[Bill_Bright]

So my main question is why do we still use dual channel? What happened to triple channel? Why do we progress everywhere but there?

You have made an incorrect assumption. You assume triple channel is better than dual. While "in theory", it might look like it could offer significant performance gains, in reality, especially for the money, it does not.

Turns out, simply having equal or more RAM with 2 bigger sticks in dual channel is less expensive and offers essentially equal (or only negligible differences) in performance than with 3 sticks. It costs more for the motherboard makers to add a slot - and support for it. That increases the cost of the motherboard. And it cost more for us consumers to buy 3 sticks, instead of just too.

But more importantly, in nearly every case, in terms of performance, more RAM almost always trumps faster RAM. For example, 2 x 16GB, in almost every case, offers better performance for less money than 3 x 8GB.

So the bottom line is, triple channel never panned out as being worth the extra money to support it.

Now quad channel is a different story - but of course 4 sticks is even more expensive for the consumer, and more expensive to add more slots (and support for them) on the motherboard - not to mention, two additional slots take up precious real estate too.

 

[Chrispy_]

So my main question is why do we still use dual channel? What happened to triple channel? Why do we progress everywhere but there?

Because more channels means more expensive CPUs and more PCB layers on the motherboard, which is obviously more expensive too. Increasing the number of channels is exponentially more difficult too, as there are additional complications with trace length that affects signal integrity and cross-channel interference becomes more problematic (and more expensive to mitigate) as your channel count goes up.

There are two ways to increase memory bandwidth:

1. Use a wider bus (more channels)
2. Use faster memory (more MT/s)

I've already explained that option 1 is more expensive, exponentially. For consumer (and even many business) needs, dual-channel is adequate whilst being cheap. The increasing bandwidth requirements have been satisfied by the slow yet steady march in DRAM technology; 12 years ago, halfway through DDR3's lifecycle, common DDR3-1600 was dirt-cheap and offered ~12GB/s of bandwidth. Now we're partway through DDR5's lifecycle and affordable DDR5-6400 kits offer ~50GB/s with no significant alterations to motherboard design or CPU memory controllers beyond the adoption of newer standards and signalling protocols. Mechanically, which is what determines the bulk of the manufacturing cost, SDRAM has remained almost unchanged since DDR was first brought to market in 1998.

I love fancy, expensive, many channel memory and cpus as much as anyone. They are availible......you just gotta pay for them. Prices are high on everything. a 6 pack of beer is 10 dang dollars these days.....

I have a couple of Epyc Rome/Milan servers using 8-channel and the one thing I remember when configuring them is how SLOW the RAM is in those systems. There's a lot of total bandwidth, but at the expense of latencies and timings.

I know there were some EPYC CPUs that were just rebranded AM5 products with higher DDR5 speeds but only dual-channel support. AFAIK, all of the 6-channel and 12-channel variants were firmly DDR5-4800.

 

[AusWolf]

More expensive to implement on MoBos and arguably unnecessary for consumer tasks.

Agreed. I don't feel a lick of difference even between 4800 and 6000 MHz RAM on 2 channels, so what would I do with 3 or 4? Call me a heretic.

 

[Bill_Bright]

My bold underline added)

I don't feel a lick of difference

"Feel" is, by far, the most important word there.

Except, maybe, through the placebo effect, it is highly unlikely any of us mere humans could "see" or "feel" any difference in an otherwise identical system. Maybe, on benchmarks and stress tests, one might see a slight improvement. But in real-world applications, nope.

At least not with 3 channel.

In some cases, 4-channel might. If I had a 4 slot board that supported quad, I would set it up in quad. Then I might be able to see a difference in some cherry picked, double-blind tests with otherwise identical systems - one in quad, the other in dual. I emphasis, "might".

But if it only supported 4 sticks in dual, I no doubt would be just as happy.

Now if only I could get 245FPS instead of this demoralizing, belittling 240FPS, then I would be happy.

 

[AusWolf]

My bold underline added)

"Feel" is, by far, the most important word there.

Except, maybe, through the placebo effect, it is highly unlikely any of us mere humans could "see" or "feel" any difference in an otherwise identical system. Maybe, on benchmarks and stress tests, one might see a slight improvement. But in real-world applications, nope.

I know, right? What do benchmarks matter when you can run and enjoy your games just the same?

Now if only I could get 245FPS instead of this demoralizing, belittling 240FPS, then I would be happy.

Sadly, that's the mindset many gamers live in today. The never-happy, never-satisfied, always looking for more performance mindset. And they forget about the joy of playing games. It's sad.

 

[Steevo]

For most users they couldn't tell the difference between a 14900k with 64GB and a core 2 duo clocked up with 8 GB and would be fine with either.

The biggest performance jumps we have achieved are solid storage and its speeds. I remember being excited for IDE drive speed increases, Ultra DMA 66..., I remember my first Sata drive, thinking holy crap, 150Mbps is faster than any drive now, then 300 was laughable cause what drive could ever saturate that.

Let me break out my old man rocking chair here....

 

[Upgrayedd]

I know, right? What do benchmarks matter when you can run and enjoy your games just the same?


Sadly, that's the mindset many gamers live in today. The never-happy, never-satisfied, always looking for more performance mindset. And they forget about the joy of playing games. It's sad.

My curiosity for this in gaming would deal with the 1% and .1% lows, what really makes games feel rough and not smooth. If it has any effect on mGPU in Vulkan games that support it.

As for other replies on slot count and board cost, I don't see why you NEED to add more slots for more channels, just make them 1dpc instead of 2dpc. Wouldn't that help with latency too?

https://www.servethehome.com/asrock-rack-6u8x-egs2-h200-nvidia-hgx-h200-ai-server-intel-xeon-review/

https://www.storagereview.com/review/lenovo-thinksystem-sr630-v4-review

https://www.storagereview.com/review/hpe-proliant-dl145-g11-review

https://www.servethehome.com/supermicro-sys-222h-tn-review-2u-intel-xeon-6-server-daputstor/

https://www.servethehome.com/ampere...supermicro-nvidia-broadcom-kioxia-server-cpu/

https://www.storagereview.com/review/supermicro-as-2115hv-tnrt-rack-workstation-review

it happens pretty regularly. More than anything, I think we've reached a place where workloads have diverged from "one pc to rule them all" and now have a lot of different ways to specialize a system. I love fancy, expensive, many channel memory and cpus as much as anyone. They are availible......you just gotta pay for them. Prices are high on everything. a 6 pack of beer is 10 dang dollars these days.....

These are cool but definitely not consumer lol

I'm mainly talking about what used to be HEDT. Like the now the w5-2555X and the 2565X.
I can't find a single review on these processors, how they OC or anything.

 

[AusWolf]

My curiosity for this in gaming would deal with the 1% and .1% lows, what really makes games feel rough and not smooth. If it has any effect on mGPU in Vulkan games that support it.

Even that's an insignificant detail to me. You sure notice a single deep .1% hitch, but does it affect your experience? Personally, I don't care. I never even look at .1% data in reviews, to be honest.

As for other replies on slot count and board cost, I don't see why you NEED to add more slots for more channels, just make them 1dpc instead of 2dpc. Wouldn't that help with latency too?

You do need more wiring, though.