16GB RAM Xserve Graphic?

[MacRumors]

Curiously, Apple's web server hosts this image (http://www.apple.com/xserve/images/xs_indextop_010604.gif) -- which claims 16GB of ECC RAM in the new G5 Xserve... while the "official" image (http://a772.g.akamai.net/7/772/51/cde381b0722d1c/www.apple.com/xserve/images/xs_indextop_010604_01.gif) and specs list only 8GB possible.

[GotherThanThou]

is that possible, with two G5's?

[backspinner]

Looks like a lot last minute changes... First no 2.3GHz, now 16GB to 8GB downscaling.

[zaphoyd]

Are there 2GB chips available? Do you think they were planning on make 2GB chips available and could not get them in stock? They certainly wouldn't add 8 more slots for 1GB chips... Maybe 2Gb chips are available, and you can have 16GB, just like my iMac whose ram max is 128MB has 288MB.

[rweidmann]

I think the issue is availability of 2GB EEC modules. Didn't Rubinstein in some interview even say that the Powermac G5 does support these modules once they come out. I think that they are simply not out or too expensive.

Apple has often understated the capabilities of memory controllers due to non-availability of high capacity memory modules.

[Skiniftz]

I found this ages ago. (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57619&perpage=25&pagenumber=5) ...and in fact I submitted it here on the same day...

[Pismo]

If 2GB Dimms existed, can the Xserve and OS X Server support that much RAM? Those Dimms would probably cost $1000 or more each!

[metfoo]

phil s. stated they were waiting for 2 GB modules to be cheap enough to use. 16GB will come, mjust not today. the 8gb barrier is just temp barrier

[BenRoethig]

Originally posted by metfoo
phil s. stated they were waiting for 2 GB modules to be cheap enough to use. 16GB will come, mjust not today. the 8gb barrier is just temp barrier

True. Both the dual PMG5 and the Xserves can support 2gb DIMMs ofr up to 16gb. However, they are very rare and unaffordable for most.

[0 and A ai]

Originally posted by zaphoyd
Are there 2GB chips available? Do you think they were planning on make 2GB chips available and could not get them in stock? They certainly wouldn't add 8 more slots for 1GB chips... Maybe 2Gb chips are available, and you can have 16GB, just like my iMac whose ram max is 128MB has 288MB.

what the heck imac do you have.

[yoman]

16GB!! I can't imagine what would 16GB RAM be used for. That's almost as much as my hard drive space: 18.62GB. Wow! Good on apple for being forward looking in ram. Makes the xServe more future proof. :)

[Dave K]

Crucial began offering 2 GB PC3200 ECC DIMMS (http://www.crucial.com/store/PartSpecs.asp?imodule=CT25672Y40B&cat=RAM) sometime last month.

IIRC, the developers notes on the G5 PowerMacs noted that, while the tech sheet says 8 GB max, the memory controller always supported 16 GB should 2GB DIMMS be available. Given that Apple tends to reuse chipsets between machines, I would be very surprised if the xServe wasn't the same.

Edit: Not reading Crucial specs fully.

[wymer100]

I also remember Phil S. mentioning that the xServes would go up to 16Gb of RAM, but the 2Gb sticks were just too expensive right now. Crucial has a 2Gb stick for US$999. Ouch, considering that you have to buy in pairs. However, a 2Gb kit (presumably 2x1Gb) from Kingston is something like US$1117.

[stingerman]

If you need a 16GB database server, 999 is pretty cheap compared to the alternatives. This definitely puts Apple at the very high end of cluster-able servers.

[Chryx]

Originally posted by Dave K
Crucial began offering 2 GB PC3200 ECC DIMMS (http://www.crucial.com/store/PartSpecs.asp?imodule=CT25672Y40B&cat=RAM) sometime last month.

IIRC, the developers notes on the G5 PowerMacs noted that, while the tech sheet says 8 GB max, the memory controller always supported 16 GB should 2GB DIMMS be available. Given that Apple tends to reuse chipsets between machines, I would be very surprised if the xServe wasn't the same.

Edit: Not reading Crucial specs fully.

Those Crucial Dimms are registered, which to my knowledge won't work in the Xserve or (or the Powermac)

[tny]

Originally posted by yoman
16GB!! I can't imagine what would 16GB RAM be used for. That's almost as much as my hard drive space: 18.62GB. Wow! Good on apple for being forward looking in ram. Makes the xServe more future proof. :)

I can imagine (http://www.dashes.com/anil/2003/04/14/googles_advanta) a use for that much ram.

[pgwalsh]

Originally posted by tny
I can imagine (http://www.dashes.com/anil/2003/04/14/googles_advanta) a use for that much ram. That was an interesting read and I think we could have an interesting thread topic on this.

I'm thinking writeable rom chips for OS and certain applications like PhotoShop.. That would be much more stable and wicked fast.

[jamilecrire]

Originally posted by yoman
16GB!! I can't imagine what would 16GB RAM be used for. That's almost as much as my hard drive space: 18.62GB. Wow! Good on apple for being forward looking in ram. Makes the xServe more future proof. :)

Enterprise level database server. I keep bugging Oracle about making their release "supported" but it looks like I'll be going with Sybase instead. I'm looking to migrate my companies application from a dual setup (linux/jsp/oracle & windows/asp/sql server) to one platform. Apple offers Tomcat with their Apache distribution so we'll be converting to OS X Server, JSP & Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (http://www.sybase.com/products/databaseservers/ase) instead of Oracle.

Oh to clarify, our database is around 13GB and running it in ram is better than off a hard drive (even if it is RAID 0 with redundant servers).

[nek]

Originally posted by wymer100
I also remember Phil S. mentioning that the xServes would go up to 16Gb of RAM, but the 2Gb sticks were just too expensive right now. Crucial has a 2Gb stick for US$999. Ouch, considering that you have to buy in pairs. However, a 2Gb kit (presumably 2x1Gb) from Kingston is something like US$1117.

It may seem expensive, but anyone who wants at least 4GB of RAM is better off getting 2 2GB DIMMs for $1998 instead of 4 1GB DIMMs for $2234 and then there is still lots of room for expansion.

[MrMacMan]

Price is an issue...

Apple can claim that it can go 16 GB Ram... but people will call them on it and apple would have to say 'buy these 2 GB sticks at $1000 a piece'... so yeah not practical to tell that to everyone.

It will happen when prices are lowered.

[Anonymous Freak]

Originally posted by MrMacman
Price is an issue...

Apple can claim that it can go 16 GB Ram... but people will call them on it and apple would have to say 'buy these 2 GB sticks at $1000 a piece'... so yeah not practical to tell that to everyone.

It will happen when prices are lowered.

Except anyone who is even contemplating a server that needs 16GB of RAM is perfectly aware of the costs involved.

The other option would be 16 1GB DIMMs (at over $500 a piece, so just as bad.)

Trust me, in the server industry, high cost isn't something customers call manufacturers on. At least, with the commodity components. Now, if Apple themselves were trying to sell the 2GB DIMMs for $4000 a piece, that's another story.

[SiriusExcelsior]

i read somewhere that each 64-bit chip theoriotically supported up to 4TB (not typo) of ram... so 16gb of ram shouldn't be so much of a surprise...

this is of course assuming that such modules (512gb, 1tb, 2tb or 4 tb) were available....

[vitaboy]

Actually, a 64-bit processor can theoretically support 2^64 bytes of memory.

This is

1.845e+19 bytes
=1.801e+16 KB
=1.759e+13 MB
=1.718e+10 GB
=16,777,216 TB
=16,384 PB (petabyte)
=16 EB (exabytes)

In other words, a 64 bit processor can theoretically address more than 16 BILLION gigabytes of RAM.

By the way, I think I read the same article where the 4 TB figure was thrown around, but it was clearly a factual and mathematical error on the writer's part. 16 exabytes is millions of times more than a measly 4 terabyte system.

Even with Moore's Law, it will be quite a while before we start running into the theoretical limits of 64-bit memory addressing. :D

The reason why Apple is only stating 8 GB of RAM support (or 16 GB, which should happen once 2 GB EEC memory sticks are on the market) is for wholly practical reasons.

Even if it were possible to manufacture 1 terabyte memory sticks, the current technology for accessing that memory would be WAY too slow. For example, the G5 chips is a bandwidth monster compared to other chips on the market and it can move 6.4 GB per second in and out of the chip.

If you had a sever with a "measly" 1 TB of RAM, the G5 chip would take, oh, 160 seconds to go through the contents of the RAM completely at top theoretical speed. Never mind how long your coffee break will be waiting for the computer to go through 16 exabytes of RAM. We'll need totally fantastical technologies like holographic quantum mechanical memory or something. :D

So clearly, your memory bandwidth has to grow along with memory capacity, and so we probably won't see Macs move beyond 16 or 32 GB of RAM until a next-gen, higher bandwidth PowerPC chip comes along. G6 anyone?

[Anonymous Freak]

Originally posted by vitaboy
Actually, a 64-bit processor can theoretically support 2^64 bytes of memory.
[math removed]
In other words, a 64 bit processor can theoretically address more than 16 BILLION gigabytes of RAM.


From what I remember, the PowerPC 970 processor itself only supports addressing up to 4TB of memory. This is a specific design choice/limitation of the IBM PowerPC 970 chip. Just as the PowerPC 601 was a 32-bit chip that supported only 2GB of RAM (even though 32-bit architectures can support 4GB.)

[vitaboy]

Originally posted by ehurtley
From what I remember, the PowerPC 970 processor itself only supports addressing up to 4TB of memory. This is a specific design choice/limitation of the IBM PowerPC 970 chip. Just as the PowerPC 601 was a 32-bit chip that supported only 2GB of RAM (even though 32-bit architectures can support 4GB.)

This may indeed be the case, since there is no practical way today to build a system with even a petabye of RAM and test it. But theoretically speaking, 2^64 is 16 exabytes, which is a pretty mind-boggling figure that's of Douglas Adams proportions. :D

[pinto32]

2GB chips are old news...there are 4GB PC2100 chips

[pinto32]

How long until we see googleplex RAM chips?

[moo083]

I'm a CS major and from what I have learned in my Computer Engineering classes, a 64 bit processor can only handle memory addresses for up to 8 gigabytes of ram, and a 32 bit can only go up to 4 gigs of ram...

I don't know where all this terrabyte stuff came from but I think its a dream...

As for 16 gigs, it is remotely possible in a machine with two 64 bit processors, although it would be a pain to implement and slow(since the processors DO have to communicate*), even if it were extremely expensive...

*=I mean think about it, if there are 2 processors, it has to output any computing it does to cache, and then from cache to main memory. If it did not output it to main memory (RAM) then, since each processor generally has its own cache, after one processor did something with some data, if the other processor was doing something with the data the other processor just used, then it would be using old data or something else entirely and crash...as for 16 gigs, it is possible that each processor would address 8 gigs of RAM and they communicate, but then if one processor needs data thats in the other main memory, it would have to ask the other processor if its in its memory and halt all processes going on at the moment, causing chaos throughout, the other way is to not have them communicate with eachother but thats just like having 2 machines in one case sharing data ports, powersupply, etc...

[zaphoyd]

I would ask your comp eng teacher to reexplain.

64 can address 2^64 bytes of ram
32 can address 2^32 etc

this translates into roughly 4GB for 32 bit systems, If the hardware supports it.

64 bit systems can handle *much* more than 8GB. 16 Exabytes, as mentioned previously. 2 processors does not change that, as Apple has had dual processor 32 bit G4s and they are still limited to 4GB.

-Peter Thorson
Zaphoyd Studios
www.zaphoyd.com

[diran]

2GB DIMMs are available, but I'm not sure how common they are yet. We have gotten a lot in where to work to verify server configurations with the new chips. Nothing like 512GB of ram in a 64 way box.

[Edot]

Originally posted by moo083
I'm a CS major and from what I have learned in my Computer Engineering classes, a 64 bit processor can only handle memory addresses for up to 8 gigabytes of ram, and a 32 bit can only go up to 4 gigs of ram...

I don't know where all this terrabyte stuff came from but I think its a dream...

As for 16 gigs, it is remotely possible in a machine with two 64 bit processors, although it would be a pain to implement and slow(since the processors DO have to communicate*), even if it were extremely expensive...

*=I mean think about it, if there are 2 processors, it has to output any computing it does to cache, and then from cache to main memory. If it did not output it to main memory (RAM) then, since each processor generally has its own cache, after one processor did something with some data, if the other processor was doing something with the data the other processor just used, then it would be using old data or something else entirely and crash...as for 16 gigs, it is possible that each processor would address 8 gigs of RAM and they communicate, but then if one processor needs data thats in the other main memory, it would have to ask the other processor if its in its memory and halt all processes going on at the moment, causing chaos throughout, the other way is to not have them communicate with eachother but thats just like having 2 machines in one case sharing data ports, powersupply, etc...

Multiproccessing already works. There is no reason that adding more ram should change anything.

[Hemingray]

Originally posted by pinto32
How long until we see googleplex RAM chips?

Wouldn't that be googleplexbyte RAM chips? ;)

There will come a point in time when all this RAM won't make a darn bit of difference. When you start talking about PBs and EBs of RAM, I don't think any data on this Earth as we know it could fill up that much! Any math whiz out there care to prove/disprove that? I certainly don't have the knowledge myself... I just like saying yottabytes and zetabytes. :D

[axle_512]

Yoman said:
16GB!! I can't imagine what would 16GB RAM be used for. That's almost as much as my hard drive space: 18.62GB. Wow! Good on apple for being forward looking in ram. Makes the xServe more future proof.

Yoman,
There are server applications that can utitlize quite a lot of ram. A midrange server from Sun Microsystems can hold up to 192 GB of ram. Keep in mind that Xserves are probably gearned more towards enterprises.
link here (http://www.sun.com/servers/midrange/)

moo083, zaphoyd is correct. In a 32 bit Operating system, you have 32 bits of address space. 2^32 = 4GB
2^33 = 8GB, so you can imagine the address space with 2^64. It grows exponentially.

[wizard]

Would you mind pointing out which engineering school you are going to. Those of us with freinds looking for schools or those of us with kids would really like to know.

The reason being is what you describe below is wrong. As others have stated, 64 bit machines imply 2^64 addressable memeory locations. The 970 does not implement all of that address range, but that address range is far greater than 8 gigabytes. A particular machine may have addressing limits far below the hardware addressing range of the CPU driving the computer. Such address range limitations are often hardware issues outside the CPU.

Thanks
Dave



Originally posted by moo083
I'm a CS major and from what I have learned in my Computer Engineering classes, a 64 bit processor can only handle memory addresses for up to 8 gigabytes of ram, and a 32 bit can only go up to 4 gigs of ram...

I don't know where all this terrabyte stuff came from but I think its a dream...

As for 16 gigs, it is remotely possible in a machine with two 64 bit processors, although it would be a pain to implement and slow(since the processors DO have to communicate*), even if it were extremely expensive...

*=I mean think about it, if there are 2 processors, it has to output any computing it does to cache, and then from cache to main memory. If it did not output it to main memory (RAM) then, since each processor generally has its own cache, after one processor did something with some data, if the other processor was doing something with the data the other processor just used, then it would be using old data or something else entirely and crash...as for 16 gigs, it is possible that each processor would address 8 gigs of RAM and they communicate, but then if one processor needs data thats in the other main memory, it would have to ask the other processor if its in its memory and halt all processes going on at the moment, causing chaos throughout, the other way is to not have them communicate with eachother but thats just like having 2 machines in one case sharing data ports, powersupply, etc...

[bored]

Guys, it's not really a 16 GB config. This is the same 8 GB box, bundled with the new (super-secret) RamDoubler X.

Gotcha.

[army_guy]

Iam currently testing the 2GB PC3200 ECC Registered Crucial chips in my TYAN board so far so good at 16GB. The PC2100 4GB is a completly different story as the chips are high density (1Gbit/64Mbyte parts) and stacked and only run at 266MHz vs 400MHz and also the $7000 cost. Most likely you would be using these with Itaniums and 800 series Opterons.

[pjo898]

a 64 bit processor can address 2^64 bits.. not bytes.. effectively 2^61 bytes. There are ways around this as 32 can only address 512 megs... so the roofs have some leway.. yet in a pure sense, the correct amount is 2^61 bytes, which translates into 2.3058e+18 bytes. by my pen that looks like 18,096,912 MB.

[G5orbust]

From what I remember, the PowerPC 970 processor itself only supports addressing up to 4TB of memory. This is a specific design choice/limitation of the IBM PowerPC 970 chip. Just as the PowerPC 601 was a 32-bit chip that supported only 2GB of RAM (even though 32-bit architectures can support 4GB.)

Im pretty sure that the G5 has a 42- bit RAM address and not pure 64 bit. Though I could be wrong.

2^42 = 4398046511104 bits or 549755813888 bytes... this being 549755.813888 MB or 549.7558138879999 GB.

[gekko513]

a 64 bit processor can address 2^64 bits.. not bytes.. effectively 2^61 bytes. There are ways around this as 32 can only address 512 megs... so the roofs have some leway.. yet in a pure sense, the correct amount is 2^61 bytes, which translates into 2.3058e+18 bytes. by my pen that looks like 18,096,912 MB.
I'm sorry that's wrong, too. The way processors work is by addressing chunks of bits, it so happens that both the Power architecture and the x86 architecture smallest chunks are 8 bits = 1 byte. That's why a 64 bit processor in theory could address 2^64 bytes, not bits.

This is also the reason why a boolean value (yes/no, true/false, 1/0) declared in any programming language on these architectures take up 1 byte of memory, not just one bit.

[gekko513]

Im pretty sure that the G5 has a 42- bit RAM address and not pure 64 bit. Though I could be wrong.

2^42 = 4398046511104 bits or 549755813888 bytes... this being 549755.813888 MB or 549.7558138879999 GB.
Should still be enough for the next couple of years :D It may however very well be a limitation in say 20 years.

[uzombie]

Guys, it's not really a 16 GB config. This is the same 8 GB box, bundled with the new (super-secret) RamDoubler X.

Gotcha.

Ha! A Vaporware from the past! :eek:

[robbieduncan]

I'm sorry that's wrong, too. The way processors work is by addressing chunks of bits, it so happens that both the Power architecture and the x86 architecture smallest chunks are 8 bits = 1 byte. That's why a 64 bit processor in theory could address 2^64 bytes, not bits.

This is also the reason why a boolean value (yes/no, true/false, 1/0) declared in any programming language on these architectures take up 1 byte of memory, not just one bit.

I don't think you are right about this. Whilst it is true that a CPU will tend you read groups of bits (actually the width of it's data bus) and will deal with those groups as bytes it stores then as a set of bits. It can address each bit individually so the amount of memory space is equal to 2^(width of address bus). Note that memory space != total maximum RAM as some devices are likely to be mapped into the memory space which reduces the amount of RAM you can have (without nasty tricks).

[gekko513]

I don't think you are right about this. Whilst it is true that a CPU will tend you read groups of bits (actually the width of it's data bus) and will deal with those groups as bytes it stores then as a set of bits. It can address each bit individually so the amount of memory space is equal to 2^(width of address bus). Note that memory space != total maximum RAM as some devices are likely to be mapped into the memory space which reduces the amount of RAM you can have (without nasty tricks).
A processor can isolate single bits when they are in the registers but the load/store instructions available are byte oriented at a minimum.

[robbieduncan]

A processor can isolate single bits when they are in the registers but the load/store instructions available are byte oriented at a minimum.

OK, maybe my honors degree in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science doesn't count for much. Read this: Intro to 64 bit computing (http://arstechnica.com/cpu/03q1/x86-64/x86-64-1.html) Now lets talk.

[gekko513]

OK, maybe my honors degree in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science doesn't count for much. Read this: Intro to 64 bit computing (http://arstechnica.com/cpu/03q1/x86-64/x86-64-1.html) Now lets talk.
So, I read it, and it confirmed my statement: "it's fairly common knowledge that a 32-bit processor can address at most 4GB of memory. (Remember our 232 = 4.3 billion number? That 4.3 billion bytes is about 4GB.) A 64-bit architecture could theoretically, by contrast, address up to 18 million terabytes."

If the cpus were addressing individual bits, then a 32-bit processor would only be able to address 2^32 bits = 4Gb = 512MB. We all know this is wrong.

(Oh, and you're not the only one with a Computer Science degree. And having a degree doesn't prevent any of us from being misinformed.)

[robbieduncan]

Fair enough. I can't disagree with the maths.

[P-Worm]

Yes, but did you guys take relativity into account? ;)

P-Worm

[keysersoze]

(Oh, and you're not the only one with a Computer Science degree. And having a degree doesn't prevent any of us from being misinformed.)

Well, I have a degree in Economics so I am never wrong.

(But always misinformed)
;)

[Mord]

Wouldn't that be googleplexbyte RAM chips? ;)

There will come a point in time when all this RAM won't make a darn bit of difference. When you start talking about PBs and EBs of RAM, I don't think any data on this Earth as we know it could fill up that much! Any math whiz out there care to prove/disprove that? I certainly don't have the knowledge myself... I just like saying yottabytes and zetabytes. :D

thats what they said about 4GB of ram back when 32bit was new but a googleplexabyte is a bit overkill.

let me put it like this you work out how long it would take you to write it out taking 1 second per every didgit?

(googleplex = (10^10)^100 I think)

[qubex]

In all due honesty, 16 GBytes of RAM is quite tame. The company I work for has an IBM SP/2 with well over a terabyte of RAM. Granted, it's a massively multiprocessor machine where RAM is split between processors (and not shared as in an SMP box like the G5 XServes), but you get the idea: some tasks require astonishing amounts of memory. Databases and 3D rendering being two of these tasks, and typical bioinformatics applications (which AltiVec is surprisingly adept at) being a third.

Contrary to what somebody misguidedly stated, 16 GBytes is well within the addressable memory space of the 64-bit G5. The PowerPC is a word-aligned architecture (as opposed to byte-aligned architecure such as x86); words presumably being either 32- or 64-bit (4 and 8 bytes, respectively). Whether or not the G5 is limited to memory on the order of TBytes or not, it could theoretically address 2^64 bytes as correctly stated. This is far in excess of 16 GBytes.

As a mark of amusement, I'd like to note that here in China and Hong Kong 2 GByte memory modules are starting to appear on the market, albeit at a high premium. Nonetheless one particular performance freak I know has already loaded four such modules into his dual Opteron box, thus achieving the key 16 GBytes of RAM figure. I seem to remember him having to recompile his Linux kernel to accomodate this figure, but as far as I know all is now good and well. Myself, I have no need for such copious amounts of memory.

So there are certainly no barriers to putting 16 GBytes of RAM into an XServe G5, nor, for that matter, a PowerMac G5. Since these are SMP (Symmetric MultiProcessing, a form of "shared memory architecture") calculations of the form "each processor can address X amount of RAM, and there are two processors, so total amount of RAM can be 2*X" are flawed. I'd also like to note that whereas the G5 PowerMac takes "regular RAM", the XServe does indeed take registered (error-correcting) memory. This is, if I remember correctly, the main reason for which VirginaTech has replaced its PowerMacs with XServes. Thus availability of 2 GByte RAM modules to the "registered" variety would not preclude their installation in a G5 XServe.

[Chryx]

So there are certainly no barriers to putting 16 GBytes of RAM into an XServe G5, nor, for that matter, a PowerMac G5. Since these are SMP (Symmetric MultiProcessing, a form of "shared memory architecture") calculations of the form "each processor can address X amount of RAM, and there are two processors, so total amount of RAM can be 2*X" are flawed. I'd also like to note that whereas the G5 PowerMac takes "regular RAM", the XServe does indeed take registered (error-correcting) memory. This is, if I remember correctly, the main reason for which VirginaTech has replaced its PowerMacs with XServes. Thus availability of 2 GByte RAM modules to the "registered" variety would not preclude their installation in a G5 XServe.

For the record, Registered memory is NOT the same thing as ECC memory.
typically registered modules are ECC, but ECC doesn't inherently mean registered.

and from the specs I've looked at, the Xserve G5 does NOT take registered ram, although it does take ECC

[stoid]

thats what they said about 4GB of ram back when 32bit was new but a googleplexabyte is a bit overkill.

let me put it like this you work out how long it would take you to write it out taking 1 second per every didgit?

(googleplex = (10^10)^100 I think)

Close.

googolplex (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=googolplex)
: the figure 1 followed by a googol of zeroes equal to 10^googol (or 10^(10^100) )

All calculations below are subject to my own stupidity, and me trying to do large calculations at 2 in the morning.

If you had started writing zeros at a rate of one per second for the last 6 billion years, you would only be about 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000003% done.

If one character in a text file is one byte the file would be on the flavor of 9.1 * 10^87 Terabytes. Split up that file and burn it to 4.7GB DVDs, and stack them and your stack would stretch completely across the Milky Way Galaxy about 1.2 * 10^72 times and at only 10 grams per disc they would be 4.7 * 10^46 times as massive at the all the matter contained within the galaxy.

Yes, googolplex is a very large number.

[Schroedinger]

Guys, I wanted to thank you. The day you can get a physicist to think "damn that guy is a geek" is a rare and special day. :D

[stoid]

Guys, I wanted to thank you. The day you can get a physicist to think "damn that guy is a geek" is a rare and special day. :D

Why thank you! :o


BTW, that percentage is really hard to understand how miniscule it is. For reference, that percentage is about a million trillionth the mass of a proton compared to all the mass of the Milky Way Galaxy!

There is no rational way to describe a googolplex. It is incomprehensibly large.

[gerardrj]

16GB!! I can't imagine what would 16GB RAM be used for. That's almost as much as my hard drive space: 18.62GB. Wow! Good on apple for being forward looking in ram. Makes the xServe more future proof. :)

There's your answer. Run from ramdisk. If you can fit all of your applications in memory, then set the hard disk to turn off, your system would be amazingly fast.
I used to run my Q900 from a ramdisk, the thing seemed like it was 2x faster than when running from HD, a lot quieter and cooler also.

[gerardrj]

Nonetheless one particular performance freak I know has already loaded four such modules into his dual Opteron box, thus achieving the key 16 GBytes of RAM figure.

Did he use eight modules or wind up with 8GB? Or did he use 4GB modules?. You math doesn't match.
4 DIMMs x 2GB = 8GB

[qubex]

I checked with him today, and I realised I had made a mistake. He has four 2 GByte modules for a total of 8 GBytes. My bad.