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Comment by cubefox | Hacker News Reader

This doesn't explain why non-soldered RAM isn't okay for graphics cards when it is still considered perfectly acceptable for desktop computers.

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Because GPUs have had it soldered since the beginning, while desktops have had it slotted since (close to) the beginning. There are some exceptions to that rule, but it mostly holds.

Not to mention that the bar of acceptibility is moving. We had RAM in slots in laptops for a long while, but it's (not so) slowly going away. You can still find laptops with SO-DIMMs, but it's not a given anymore.

A longer time ago, sound cards used to have expandable RAM too.

Go back far enough (486) and cache was off-chip on simms too!

Yep. Soldered is just the best manufacturing process (besides on-package). Moving things close together simply delivers better outcomes and that will always trump openness concerns.

I would imagine that something like LPCAMM2 for GDDR is entirely possible and will never, ever be seen because people already accept replacing an entire $10000 GPU to get another 32GB VRAM on the next generation, so why give up that guaranteed revenue stream?

That the highest performing option also creates the most lock-in is a happy accident.

That would be COAST as in 'cache on a stick', which wasn't that common.

They usally came in 8 to 16 discrete chips with pins on both of their sides, to be soldered on board, or plugged into sockets.

Plus one or two 'tag-rams' as chips of the same size.

All depending on the chipset, its cache-controller, and which capabilities the board-maker decided to use/expose/support. Which sometimes the BIOS would get wrong, still :-)

Because you can't sell more graphics cards if consumers get more use out of them.

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