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Comment by Bud | Hacker News Reader

Soldered? It's not soldered. It's part of the actual SoC. Could we please update our research to more recent than 20 years ago?

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It's soldered to the package. The actual RAM components are the very same discrete BGA ICs that would normally be soldered to a motherboard, but they've soldered them right next to the SoC die instead for tighter signaling.

https://i.imgur.com/Y3PLp33.jpeg

Anyway results are what matters, and the module in the OP has bandwidth figures half way between the M3 and M3 Pro while retaining upgradability.

The switch to ARM Macs only happened 3.5 years ago, plenty of Intel models still in service that would benefit from a RAM upgrade if it weren’t soldered

The ram is soldered into an Intel Mac for the exact same reason that it's soldered into an ARM Mac.

To make upgrades incredibly expensive, allowing them to have the same product generate revenue as both an expensive mid-range machine as well as a ridiculously expensive "professional" machine. Why make different products when you can sell the same product at different prices?

In case of intel macs, the soldered RAM should have made the device and RAM options even cheaper, as the BOM is simpler. The only real argument against soldered RAM was DDR5 in SODIMM being bad - which LPCAMM2 fixes.

If they didn't use it specifically to price gouge, the soldered RAM wouldn't have been a problem. 64GB of RAM costs practically nothing at market prices, so they could honestly have had a single SKU with max RAM without notable price change over entry level - heck, maybe the BOM reduction would even sponsor it.

... But then they'd lose their mechanism to drain companies with deep pockets for necessary upgrades. Being sensible and fair is not profitable.

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