GDDR7x doesn't come in dimm factor?
In general soldered ram seems to get much higher bandwidth than removeable ram. See ryzen AI Max vs 9950x max ram throughputfor example
In general soldered ram seems to get much higher bandwidth than removeable ram. See ryzen AI Max vs 9950x max ram throughputfor example
Strix Halo seems to use LPDDR with 8000 MT/s, which is a bit faster than the usual 5600 MT/s-6400 MT/s "normal" DDR5-DIMMs (Albeit (expensive) faster ones seem to exist), so there's a slight edge towards soldered memory (not sure about LPCAMM2 and similar tech).
GDDR7 is a different league, a 5070 Ti also has a 256bit memory interface, but has 896GB/s bandwidth, compared to strix halo with 256GB/s
I had to get everything top spec to fit 4 channels of 6000MT/s on my 9950x (asus proArt motherboard and the top tier trident neo RAM sticks) -- otherwise it's reportedly unstable.
Strix Halo simply has more memory controllers. Threadrippers are also quad channel, and should be able to run 4 DIMMs at rated speeds, but the cheapest Zen 5 Threadripper seems to be almost double the price of a 9950X3D.
Thanks for the info on the hardware quirks, useful to know!
We seem to be arriving at a cambrian explosion of viable hardware these days between ARM and x86, soldered vs DIMM, etc.
It's refreshing coming from 20 years of x86 being all that matters.
All GDDR memory is intended only for being soldered around a GPU chip, on the same PCB. This is how they achieve a memory throughput that is 4 to 8 times higher than the DDR memories used in DIMMs or SODIMMs.