Intel plans to launch next year the first processors that support RAM based on 3D XPoint memories along with Cascade Lake, supporting capacities of 3TB and 6TB of RAM, depending on the processor model.

A few days ago we echoed Intel's plans regarding Optane and 3D XPoint memories, which, according to Intel, would arrive next year in RAM format, but for now this would only be for Cascade Lake processors, which will be the foundation of the next generation of Intel Xeon professional processors. Cascade Lake first appeared during the SAP Sapphire conferences, where Intel was talking about the next generation coming in 2018 which would be based on Cascade Lake-SP and Skylake-SP Refresh, both based on the 14nm + manufacturing process.

Optane is an Intel alternative to storage based on powerful 3D XPoint memories, which have the mission of replacing current SSD drives and M.2, because the memories developed by Intel offer more capacity per stack (chip memory) and are much faster with a latency currently somewhat higher than that offered by RAM memories, which is much lower than the latencies currently offered by SSDs. Intel has already released a 16GB and 32GB Optane professional and a commercial version that can currently only be used as cache memory and on motherboards with a Kaby Lake processor.

'Intel is going to allow users to dramatically improve system performance by putting more data close to the processor on non-volatile media, and it does so in an affordable way, this is truly a game changer when in this format designed for applications. and systems', commented from Intel.

INTEL WILL LAUNCH RAM MEMORY BASED ON 3D XPOINT MEMORIES NEXT YEAR

Regarding the capacities, Cascade Lake will come with support for four Optane-based DIMM RAM memory sockets and with a maximum capacity of 3TB and systems that support eight DIMM RAM memory sockets can reach up to 6TB capacity. To give us an idea, the Kaby Lake and the AMD Ryzen support a maximum of 64GB in four DIMM RAM sockets and the Broadwell-E, as well as the upcoming Skylake-X, support 128GB in four DIMM RAM sockets.

Source: TweakTown