According to repair biz iFixit, the issue with the power-frugal LPDDR memory chips is that the lower voltage they operate at calls for more attention to be paid to signal integrity between the CPU and memory. In practice, this has meant shorter track distances on the circuit board, leading to LPDDR being soldered down as close to the processor as possible.
LPCAMM2 is intended to address this by putting LPDDR onto a circuit board module that is “cleverly designed to mount right up next to the CPU,” with “very short traces to help maximize signal integrity,” the iFixit team explains in a blog and video detailing their hands-on with the ThinkPad P1 Gen 7.
I’m guessing regular non-LP DDR works fine socketed in desktops because power is nearly a non-issue. Need to burn a few watts to guarantee signal integrity? We’ve got a chonky PSU, so no problem. On mobile devices however every watt matters…
I recently got a have Mini-PC which a processor with a TDP of 6W and it uses run of the mill SODIMMS and the power supply for that stuff is a pretty regular wall socket power adapter, the same kind you would see for, say, a media box.
I suspect it’s not even a few watts (at 3.3V 1W is around 300mA is quite an insane amount of current for a signal line), more like tens or even hundreths of a watt.
Mind you, what really changes here is voltage rather than current: these things run at a lower voltage, which helps with speed and in reducing the power dissipating as heat (so they waste less power and heat up less) and that’s were signal integrity on longer signal traces becomes more of a problem because lower voltage signals are closer to the noise level the drop in voltage from the resistance of the circuit board lines because a higher proportion of the original voltage so the longer the trace the more likely it is that whatever reaches the other side is pretty much at the same level as noise.
Still matches what you wrote, by the way, as power = voltage * current, so all else being the same lower voltage does mean less power consumed. It’s just that you were a bit off on the scale of the power consumption involved plus there’s some more stuff related to using a lower voltage not just for lower power dissipation but also lower heat generation (which is directly derived from lower power dissipation) and higher speeds (which is for different reasons).
Normal DIMMs work fine but soldered RAM can just be much faster and in general better. It’s not an acceptable compromise on most desktops but for laptops which also has to be smaller and need to worry about stuff like battery life, it matters more.
there was perfectly fine memory that was upgradable before. They (system integrators/oems) saw it as a way to kill the upgrade market, boosting profits.
“It’s more performant than the old SODIMM sticks, vastly more efficient, it saves space, and it should even help with thermals as well. All that, and it’s still about as repairable as anything we’ve ever seen,” iFixit concluded.
Yes, there was a perfectly fine, upgradable memory standard before. And many 486s were also perfectly fine, upgradable computers.
The fact that a new technology makes it so we can have our cake and eat it too — upgradability without any compromise — is a fantastic innovation.
No, not at the cost of locking in customer choice and flexibility. I have soldered-on ram in my ThinkPad, but not in my Predator gaming laptop. There is a -157% chance that Lenovo was trying to extract a few percent of extra speed so that I can open Firefox 0.13 seconds faster. Perhaps they’d try to cry “but battery life!”, in which case I’d respond with “well it’s not fucking working” as that machine barely gets 2.5h on a brand-new battery, browsing the web + terminal windows doing server admin stuff. (ThinkPad X13 Gen 2, Intel, with WWAN if you’re curious. Fucking 1.5k and it’s just passable for basic usage on the go.)
I’m not really upset with this ‘new’ standard, but the fact that oems are absolutely going to use it as bullshit marketing “look, we fixed the problem! get our un-fucked ram for only $129 per stick!”. That’s what the fuck I’m pissed off about.
I mean I’m not sitting here defending soldered on ram but your unnecessary aggression and sarcasm in your previous responses overshadows the fact that while solder on ram sucks for the upgrade and repair market the underlying tech has very tangible improvements and now we can maintain that improvement and the upgrade and repair functions.
I agree, soldered ram is bad. But I disagree that LPDDR ram is fundamentally bad and this improvement allowing it to be modular while maintaining its improvements is a very good thing.
As far as your complaints of battery life on your thinpad goes, there is much more to battery life than the consumption of the memory but naturally every part plays a role and small improvements in multiple places result in a larger net improvement. I’m assuming you’re running linux which in my experience has always suffered from less than optimal power usage. I’m far from an expert in that particular area but its always been my understanding that it is largely caused by insufficient fireware support.
As a whole this looking at this article in a vacuum i only see good things. A major flaw with lpddr has been address and i will be able to expect these improvements in future systems.
“we created the problem of soldered-on ram! now we have the solution: a new standard, for no fucking reason!” -every memory, board, and system company
But the article explains that there is a technical reason.
For the curious (and lazy):
I still don’t understand, why this is seemingly no problem in any other application.
Desktops, servers and even some chonkier laptops manage to work with regular (SO)DIMMs just fine.
I’m guessing regular non-LP DDR works fine socketed in desktops because power is nearly a non-issue. Need to burn a few watts to guarantee signal integrity? We’ve got a chonky PSU, so no problem. On mobile devices however every watt matters…
Plus the smaller chips (like the CPU) are designed for lower voltage and current. They can’t handle dialing up the power, they’ll melt.
I recently got a have Mini-PC which a processor with a TDP of 6W and it uses run of the mill SODIMMS and the power supply for that stuff is a pretty regular wall socket power adapter, the same kind you would see for, say, a media box.
I suspect it’s not even a few watts (at 3.3V 1W is around 300mA is quite an insane amount of current for a signal line), more like tens or even hundreths of a watt.
Mind you, what really changes here is voltage rather than current: these things run at a lower voltage, which helps with speed and in reducing the power dissipating as heat (so they waste less power and heat up less) and that’s were signal integrity on longer signal traces becomes more of a problem because lower voltage signals are closer to the noise level the drop in voltage from the resistance of the circuit board lines because a higher proportion of the original voltage so the longer the trace the more likely it is that whatever reaches the other side is pretty much at the same level as noise.
Still matches what you wrote, by the way, as power = voltage * current, so all else being the same lower voltage does mean less power consumed. It’s just that you were a bit off on the scale of the power consumption involved plus there’s some more stuff related to using a lower voltage not just for lower power dissipation but also lower heat generation (which is directly derived from lower power dissipation) and higher speeds (which is for different reasons).
Normal DIMMs work fine but soldered RAM can just be much faster and in general better. It’s not an acceptable compromise on most desktops but for laptops which also has to be smaller and need to worry about stuff like battery life, it matters more.
Sounds like there is a bunch of nuance in this topic!
But I want clear black and white distinctions and outrage!!!
Laptops with sodimm DDR5 not only use much more power, but they’re also slower than LPDDR5.
Ex: the Intel Thinkpad T16 has 5600mhz ram in sodimm form, but with soldered RAM (AMD version) it’s like 6400mhz.
Desktops/servers get around this the best they can by just blasting the power away.
My understanding is that those are slower (SODIMMs) or are able to use more power (DIMMs) to maintain signal fidelity.
“they did it to save power!!! 111 one eleven”
there was perfectly fine memory that was upgradable before. They (system integrators/oems) saw it as a way to kill the upgrade market, boosting profits.
Yes, there was a perfectly fine, upgradable memory standard before. And many 486s were also perfectly fine, upgradable computers.
The fact that a new technology makes it so we can have our cake and eat it too — upgradability without any compromise — is a fantastic innovation.
So you believe that the performance improvement and power saving is not worth creating a new standard?
No, not at the cost of locking in customer choice and flexibility. I have soldered-on ram in my ThinkPad, but not in my Predator gaming laptop. There is a -157% chance that Lenovo was trying to extract a few percent of extra speed so that I can open Firefox 0.13 seconds faster. Perhaps they’d try to cry “but battery life!”, in which case I’d respond with “well it’s not fucking working” as that machine barely gets 2.5h on a brand-new battery, browsing the web + terminal windows doing server admin stuff. (ThinkPad X13 Gen 2, Intel, with WWAN if you’re curious. Fucking 1.5k and it’s just passable for basic usage on the go.)
I’m not really upset with this ‘new’ standard, but the fact that oems are absolutely going to use it as bullshit marketing “look, we fixed the problem! get our un-fucked ram for only $129 per stick!”. That’s what the fuck I’m pissed off about.
I mean I’m not sitting here defending soldered on ram but your unnecessary aggression and sarcasm in your previous responses overshadows the fact that while solder on ram sucks for the upgrade and repair market the underlying tech has very tangible improvements and now we can maintain that improvement and the upgrade and repair functions.
I agree, soldered ram is bad. But I disagree that LPDDR ram is fundamentally bad and this improvement allowing it to be modular while maintaining its improvements is a very good thing.
As far as your complaints of battery life on your thinpad goes, there is much more to battery life than the consumption of the memory but naturally every part plays a role and small improvements in multiple places result in a larger net improvement. I’m assuming you’re running linux which in my experience has always suffered from less than optimal power usage. I’m far from an expert in that particular area but its always been my understanding that it is largely caused by insufficient fireware support.
As a whole this looking at this article in a vacuum i only see good things. A major flaw with lpddr has been address and i will be able to expect these improvements in future systems.