According to JEDEC, the association of electronic industries that standardizes the engineering and development of semiconductor-based technologies, the capacity of RAM memory doubles every 4 years or so (it’s a kind of Moore’s Law, if you look at it), and yet the performance levels and, above all, the needs of the modern PC seem to advance much faster, giving the impression that this evolution in RAM memory capacity is not sufficient.
Is the speed at which RAM capacity is growing enough?
RAM is temporary storage where calculations are saved what the processor has done so that you can “type in” them quickly when you need them without having to redo the calculations; It is a very fast type of memory that is CPU bound for this reason and is essential for the good performance and performance of any system, whether it is a PC or almost any electronic component that has a processor.
Ultimately, hardware still depends and will depend on software to make up the entire IT ecosystem that we know, so software evolves into increasingly powerful and complex programs, hardware has to do at the same rate. . An example that we have for example in games, because if barely six years ago they required 4 GB of RAM, there are already many titles that today require 16 GB of RAM capacity to have performance. adequate.
As we said before, today almost 16 GB have been standardized of RAM on any PC, and while 32GB kits are now fairly reasonably priced, they are still out of reach for most, especially high performance ones. This is currently sufficient for a gaming PC, but not for other types of equipment specifically designed for professional tasks.
However, as can be seen in the graphics of the image above whose source is own JEDEC, in fact, the capacity of RAM memory is changing almost at the same rate as its performance, so for them, it is more than meeting expectations to meet the computing needs of today’s computing.
In other words, for the JEDEC it is not necessary to invest time and resources to continue increasing the density of RAM memory modules because they advance at the same rate as their performance and, in addition, the needs. of users do not. the demand for further capacity building; after all, there are memory kits with 16 GB density per module available, although its price is still a bit expensive.
And in the professional environment? What will happen in the future?
The business environment is another story because on many occasions huge amounts of RAM are required, but as we have stated before any business has at its disposal 16 GB memory modules per module and even for a while there are also those with 32 GB per module. module, although its price goes up a lot.
For the professional environment, it is not uncommon to see servers specifically designed to host stratospheric RAM capacities (there are some that can accommodate up to 1.92 TB of RAM), so for power, needs can be more than met.
However, this does not mean that time and resources are not invested in the development of the density of memory chips, but only that it is not done as a priority because it is considered that the speed at which it evolves is more than sufficient. to cover with the needs of the industry. It is very likely, in fact, that soon the 32 GB of RAM for home PCs will be standardized in 2×16 GB kits, while for professional environments we will already see memory modules with 64 GB capacity.
