Shoving RAM into PCIE Slots & the PCIE Future, ft. Wendell of Level1 Techs
video description
Date: 2025-05-16
Related videos
Comments and reviews: 20
claucmgpcstuf5103
yea fro entrei preis rak servsa ye a.. fro adre wark flof lak databese aor wat evre tha daz not nood sirios cpmiute .. but fore gaming tha ram is not tha milime lak it was 20 yasr a go it is all in tha gpu codeks tha just alk tah cpsi thy unlok tah pore wen you bay thme it is limited locomitifv bay manifacrure adn this yea the have ader preobelsm lake no supost fro old gams lake tah no phizix 32 bit preobelm veriveriveri big .. preobelsm tah weil bery nvidai or any wan tah tris thsi shit !! vreuvreuvreuv bad !!! tah rtx 50 siris it is not ive codedreas a ralsi gosu caz of theat no suport deleberli ..defentiv scam, cars pear reiles etc fake all scam !! very bad ! ..so to fix is drive unlok adn micisoft fix optimization caz liltili ther si no future!!! cp 2077 rtx 5090 32 gb ddr7 32 fps in 4k ultra all on adn rtx 6000 pro si 96 bg ddr7 34 fps sp uea veri big pupu fro a lot of mony scam land pc afre 2020 all of it weil se wat tha consolso daz caz this si veri veri veri bad !!! so lak i sed no momari preobem si is cpu gpu micosoft blokt bay drivesr .. the have dos this from 2017 at lsit is is a scam !!! adn unlti it gets crakt tolti ther si ho hope !!at all no hope just fro more buslit tah is 2% or 4% fastre no hope it is all sofwer and drive blokt and video codec blokt and hardwer blokt laketah rtx 50 damp !!! on tha dodos !! veriverivrei .. if ia hed ca capbilit i wood put thm in jail fro this ..caz tah is wat thy dezerv adn streip of al thy got ... etc is is sham a scam tha 90 witah fake clone consols war on 8 bit .. no hope ! al prefomant dlebreli blokt bay tah microsoft nvida amd intel it is all a scam adna dres on linux it is all contreold bay drivesr .. yea veri sad but no hope !!!
reply
yea fro entrei preis rak servsa ye a.. fro adre wark flof lak databese aor wat evre tha daz not nood sirios cpmiute .. but fore gaming tha ram is not tha milime lak it was 20 yasr a go it is all in tha gpu codeks tha just alk tah cpsi thy unlok tah pore wen you bay thme it is limited locomitifv bay manifacrure adn this yea the have ader preobelsm lake no supost fro old gams lake tah no phizix 32 bit preobelm veriveriveri big .. preobelsm tah weil bery nvidai or any wan tah tris thsi shit !! vreuvreuvreuv bad !!! tah rtx 50 siris it is not ive codedreas a ralsi gosu caz of theat no suport deleberli ..defentiv scam, cars pear reiles etc fake all scam !! very bad ! ..so to fix is drive unlok adn micisoft fix optimization caz liltili ther si no future!!! cp 2077 rtx 5090 32 gb ddr7 32 fps in 4k ultra all on adn rtx 6000 pro si 96 bg ddr7 34 fps sp uea veri big pupu fro a lot of mony scam land pc afre 2020 all of it weil se wat tha consolso daz caz this si veri veri veri bad !!! so lak i sed no momari preobem si is cpu gpu micosoft blokt bay drivesr .. the have dos this from 2017 at lsit is is a scam !!! adn unlti it gets crakt tolti ther si ho hope !!at all no hope just fro more buslit tah is 2% or 4% fastre no hope it is all sofwer and drive blokt and video codec blokt and hardwer blokt laketah rtx 50 damp !!! on tha dodos !! veriverivrei .. if ia hed ca capbilit i wood put thm in jail fro this ..caz tah is wat thy dezerv adn streip of al thy got ... etc is is sham a scam tha 90 witah fake clone consols war on 8 bit .. no hope ! al prefomant dlebreli blokt bay tah microsoft nvida amd intel it is all a scam adna dres on linux it is all contreold bay drivesr .. yea veri sad but no hope !!!
reply
aBoogivogi
If PCIe is the future then please bring back an affordable HEDT CPU with more PCIe lanes. Back when LGA 2011 was still a thing a lot of people bought that platform not due to the performance but the fact that you could have more physical memory and PCIe devices hooked up to it. I feel like when AMD released 8 core parts on a consumer oriented socket Intel suddenly forgot why they made LGA2011 in the first place. What they should have done, if they wanted to remain sort of relevant in one market segment, was/is to release a new HEDT platform meant to bridge the gap between Ryzen and Threadripper. The latter gives you plenty of PCIe lanes but even the smallest core count parts is overkill for a lot of people looking to run a homelab or just have their main PC double as a NAS. And that's before you face the fact that you have to contend with expensive motherboards designed to power a small house and expensive ECC memory (which a budget HEDT platform should support, but not require).
reply
If PCIe is the future then please bring back an affordable HEDT CPU with more PCIe lanes. Back when LGA 2011 was still a thing a lot of people bought that platform not due to the performance but the fact that you could have more physical memory and PCIe devices hooked up to it. I feel like when AMD released 8 core parts on a consumer oriented socket Intel suddenly forgot why they made LGA2011 in the first place. What they should have done, if they wanted to remain sort of relevant in one market segment, was/is to release a new HEDT platform meant to bridge the gap between Ryzen and Threadripper. The latter gives you plenty of PCIe lanes but even the smallest core count parts is overkill for a lot of people looking to run a homelab or just have their main PC double as a NAS. And that's before you face the fact that you have to contend with expensive motherboards designed to power a small house and expensive ECC memory (which a budget HEDT platform should support, but not require).
reply
paulbrooks4395
I wish the fabric got used more and that mainstream CPUs came with more lanes, conversely there's a question of how many lanes will the average person use. Then we get into top tier motherboards that start to cross into Threadripper pricing (especially if they are low-volume with PLX/PCIe switches). TR at lower core counts can have more lanes, but the costs just increased by 4x.
CXL is very cool, but also useless for mainstream usage. The coherency part is the gotcha. It's great for aggregation and that's about it, but a truly aggregated system that operates in lockstep across all aggregated units will be bottlenecked by the slowest component. Still, PCIe drives NVMe and can do switching between GPUs on laptops. It's definitely become the foundational bus system, but we still have too many things that hang off the end, such as SATA/SAS controllers, USB interfaces, networking that requires the legacy stack as opposed to RDMA.
reply
I wish the fabric got used more and that mainstream CPUs came with more lanes, conversely there's a question of how many lanes will the average person use. Then we get into top tier motherboards that start to cross into Threadripper pricing (especially if they are low-volume with PLX/PCIe switches). TR at lower core counts can have more lanes, but the costs just increased by 4x.
CXL is very cool, but also useless for mainstream usage. The coherency part is the gotcha. It's great for aggregation and that's about it, but a truly aggregated system that operates in lockstep across all aggregated units will be bottlenecked by the slowest component. Still, PCIe drives NVMe and can do switching between GPUs on laptops. It's definitely become the foundational bus system, but we still have too many things that hang off the end, such as SATA/SAS controllers, USB interfaces, networking that requires the legacy stack as opposed to RDMA.
reply
kaede15
Kind of useless for end consumer. What I want are these 2 things that currently does NOT EXIST.
1) PCIE card with a chip switch to leverage your full bandwidth:
Example: a PCIE x4 lanes Gen5 in m.2 socket ---> an adapter card with a chip and have x16 slot and x16 electrical connections--> if running Gen4 cards (then it runs x8 full speed); If running Gen3 cards (then it runs at x16 full speed). Currently you can get a m2 to PCIE slot thinggy but you will ALWAYS RUN at x4 speed no matter the Generation, therefore the extra bandwidth is lost.
2)PCIE card with 2 or more USB4 type C (40Gbps), usb3 adapter cards exists, Thunderbolts cards exists, usb4 card does not.
These things exists on mobo level but does not exist independantly.
reply
Kind of useless for end consumer. What I want are these 2 things that currently does NOT EXIST.
1) PCIE card with a chip switch to leverage your full bandwidth:
Example: a PCIE x4 lanes Gen5 in m.2 socket ---> an adapter card with a chip and have x16 slot and x16 electrical connections--> if running Gen4 cards (then it runs x8 full speed); If running Gen3 cards (then it runs at x16 full speed). Currently you can get a m2 to PCIE slot thinggy but you will ALWAYS RUN at x4 speed no matter the Generation, therefore the extra bandwidth is lost.
2)PCIE card with 2 or more USB4 type C (40Gbps), usb3 adapter cards exists, Thunderbolts cards exists, usb4 card does not.
These things exists on mobo level but does not exist independantly.
reply
whyjay9959
Not sure how much CXL adds to that, but from what I've seen PCIe takes less silicon space per bandwidth than integrated memory controllers and what comes with them. The connections going through the motherboard are probably cheaper too. I think DIMM/CAMM/etc could disappear, not having the flexibility of CXL or the signal integrity, efficiency and compactness of on-package DRAM. There might also be low-end CPUs that don't have their own full memory controller.
There's also the possibility of devices sharing memory when that's not their primary function, like letting the OS use the GPU's memory when it would otherwise sit empty, or connecting two whole systems together directly with a PCIe cable.
reply
Not sure how much CXL adds to that, but from what I've seen PCIe takes less silicon space per bandwidth than integrated memory controllers and what comes with them. The connections going through the motherboard are probably cheaper too. I think DIMM/CAMM/etc could disappear, not having the flexibility of CXL or the signal integrity, efficiency and compactness of on-package DRAM. There might also be low-end CPUs that don't have their own full memory controller.
There's also the possibility of devices sharing memory when that's not their primary function, like letting the OS use the GPU's memory when it would otherwise sit empty, or connecting two whole systems together directly with a PCIe cable.
reply
zodwraith5745
More things to need more PCIe lanes. We don't have problems with PCIe speeds on consumer desktops, we need more _lanes._ We already have to sacrifice lanes to the GPU if you want a single really fast 5.0 NVMe drive. With how cheap storage is getting you can quickly fill up 3-5 NVMe slots most mainstream boards have today and press the lane issue worse.
It really does feel like AMD and Intel purposely limit lanes to pro-sumer Threadripper and Xeon systems, even though consumer level hardware is starting to ask for more, which is even worse when competent motherboards are hitting $300.
reply
More things to need more PCIe lanes. We don't have problems with PCIe speeds on consumer desktops, we need more _lanes._ We already have to sacrifice lanes to the GPU if you want a single really fast 5.0 NVMe drive. With how cheap storage is getting you can quickly fill up 3-5 NVMe slots most mainstream boards have today and press the lane issue worse.
It really does feel like AMD and Intel purposely limit lanes to pro-sumer Threadripper and Xeon systems, even though consumer level hardware is starting to ask for more, which is even worse when competent motherboards are hitting $300.
reply
pegasusted2504
When I recently upgraded my machine I was looking at different nvme drives and saw the kioxia but having never heard of them I was iffy about going with them even though they seemed to be cheaper with more storage. However now seeing someone like Wendell using them I won't have the same worries in the future. That might be a good episode, going over the different, ie non-normal, brands of components so people can broaden their choices from just the standard Crucial and Samsung etc. Edit - was that a dodgeball reference at the end ;)
reply
When I recently upgraded my machine I was looking at different nvme drives and saw the kioxia but having never heard of them I was iffy about going with them even though they seemed to be cheaper with more storage. However now seeing someone like Wendell using them I won't have the same worries in the future. That might be a good episode, going over the different, ie non-normal, brands of components so people can broaden their choices from just the standard Crucial and Samsung etc. Edit - was that a dodgeball reference at the end ;)
reply
gamersnexus
if this was a consumer product to have RAM drives for games... would be too insane! tho admittedly would be better if it had a M.2 slot on board where it copy all the data back and forth regularly, might need to have 2 drives on it, the backup one as a primary mirroring the RAM and the other games you could just swap games before playing.
imagine the CPU being the loading bottle neck! (i mean, i do have some games that do have that problem even on a M.2 at 3 GB/s or RAM Drives, just need more!)
reply
if this was a consumer product to have RAM drives for games... would be too insane! tho admittedly would be better if it had a M.2 slot on board where it copy all the data back and forth regularly, might need to have 2 drives on it, the backup one as a primary mirroring the RAM and the other games you could just swap games before playing.
imagine the CPU being the loading bottle neck! (i mean, i do have some games that do have that problem even on a M.2 at 3 GB/s or RAM Drives, just need more!)
reply
saull287
This is actually EMS(Expanded memory Specification), in DOS times; never was implemented in PC of the time, unless you have a special 8 bit ISA/VESA Card in an corresponding Slot, and the MB BIOS should be able to recognize, it was a mess. I was a great solution to not buy, expensive at the time, 1MB RAM, to expand DOS programs usage; and worked just like this, but it was never implemented; Only for Servers of som kind. Now we have a TB of RAM on the palm of your hand on PCIe5, amazing...
reply
This is actually EMS(Expanded memory Specification), in DOS times; never was implemented in PC of the time, unless you have a special 8 bit ISA/VESA Card in an corresponding Slot, and the MB BIOS should be able to recognize, it was a mess. I was a great solution to not buy, expensive at the time, 1MB RAM, to expand DOS programs usage; and worked just like this, but it was never implemented; Only for Servers of som kind. Now we have a TB of RAM on the palm of your hand on PCIe5, amazing...
reply
johnno2377
Whenever i see that Wendell and Steve are together in a video I know it is a much watch even if the tech flies over my head as the format between these two is golden. Its not laurel and Hardy but that magic is certainly present. Always a fun watch and whilst I would never use such tech as presented today I enjoyed the viewing and actually learnt something even if it is a nugget of knowledge that will just sit in the grey matter for a while.
reply
Whenever i see that Wendell and Steve are together in a video I know it is a much watch even if the tech flies over my head as the format between these two is golden. Its not laurel and Hardy but that magic is certainly present. Always a fun watch and whilst I would never use such tech as presented today I enjoyed the viewing and actually learnt something even if it is a nugget of knowledge that will just sit in the grey matter for a while.
reply
N0ld0r
Hurray! We are getting closer and closer to a modern Amiga.
x86 had a monolith die that was powerful enough to decode video, do graphics and do floating point. Now we are moving back to specific dies dedicated to video encoding, ai and so on... So say hello to Denise, Paula, Agnes (Copper). And NOW we are getting PCIE Ram!! So Zorro III slot fast ram!! What i am hearing is : Commodore did it right! LOL
reply
Hurray! We are getting closer and closer to a modern Amiga.
x86 had a monolith die that was powerful enough to decode video, do graphics and do floating point. Now we are moving back to specific dies dedicated to video encoding, ai and so on... So say hello to Denise, Paula, Agnes (Copper). And NOW we are getting PCIE Ram!! So Zorro III slot fast ram!! What i am hearing is : Commodore did it right! LOL
reply
MarcDoughty
I can see a very good use of CXL on laptops and desktops:
If a CPU manufacturer wanted to tightly couple CPU and RAM in a super-fast/wide/compact form, they could, but then hang 'tier 2' expandable memory off of a CXL bus. Your OS will prefer to move 'hot' pages to Tier 1, but warm pages can get sent to CXL's Tier 2. Even cooler pages can be compressed in Tier 2. Swap would be Tier 3 or something.
reply
I can see a very good use of CXL on laptops and desktops:
If a CPU manufacturer wanted to tightly couple CPU and RAM in a super-fast/wide/compact form, they could, but then hang 'tier 2' expandable memory off of a CXL bus. Your OS will prefer to move 'hot' pages to Tier 1, but warm pages can get sent to CXL's Tier 2. Even cooler pages can be compressed in Tier 2. Swap would be Tier 3 or something.
reply
user-qf6yt3id3w
This idea of having multiple classes of memory reminds me a bit of the base memory, extended memory, expanded memory etc of the DOS days and how the XMS specification had pages of 8086 assembly code, probably written by someone like Aaron Reynolds, on how to write a hookable XMS driver and how hook and unhook the driver entry point without corrupting the hook chain.
reply
This idea of having multiple classes of memory reminds me a bit of the base memory, extended memory, expanded memory etc of the DOS days and how the XMS specification had pages of 8086 assembly code, probably written by someone like Aaron Reynolds, on how to write a hookable XMS driver and how hook and unhook the driver entry point without corrupting the hook chain.
reply
Mugnum_
He really is like a time traveler. I understand only maybe 25% of things he says, but it all sounds like fun. Adding more analogies like he did with banks and Oracle should help.
Also while I'm a fan of PCI, it has lately been disappointing for me on desktop with it's lane-sharing problems and being unable to populate slots without sacrificing their advertised speed.
reply
He really is like a time traveler. I understand only maybe 25% of things he says, but it all sounds like fun. Adding more analogies like he did with banks and Oracle should help.
Also while I'm a fan of PCI, it has lately been disappointing for me on desktop with it's lane-sharing problems and being unable to populate slots without sacrificing their advertised speed.
reply
SapioiT
Would be really cook if we got those in 8, 16, and 32 ram slots per PCIe port. That would make this a game changer, if it got as low as $300 to $400 fpr a 8-ram-slot card, and 50% more for each doubling, it would be great. Or even if instead of more than 4-8 slots, we had PCIe splitters which also take power form the source, to get similar results.
reply
Would be really cook if we got those in 8, 16, and 32 ram slots per PCIe port. That would make this a game changer, if it got as low as $300 to $400 fpr a 8-ram-slot card, and 50% more for each doubling, it would be great. Or even if instead of more than 4-8 slots, we had PCIe splitters which also take power form the source, to get similar results.
reply
Techington
On the topic of Steel based cases, Sliger makes some fantastic 1-4U cases. They've also got standard consumer case models that are all steel. I had one of their Cerberus SFF matx cases and it was heavy and incredibly well and solidly built. I could have probably stood on it and it would have even held me and im a very heavy guy.
reply
On the topic of Steel based cases, Sliger makes some fantastic 1-4U cases. They've also got standard consumer case models that are all steel. I had one of their Cerberus SFF matx cases and it was heavy and incredibly well and solidly built. I could have probably stood on it and it would have even held me and im a very heavy guy.
reply
claucmgpcstuf5103
so yea on rtx 6000pro gddr7 96 gb on 512 bit bas stil just 34 fps cp2077 veri simple no hope !!!!avrone go bek to keple ferim and pascal max !!! caz tah si all it exist fro real fin . tha si fo tha develepers of new gaems gen if thy wontot surviv this masochizim shit !! ar thay all gon go lak ubisoft -1$ gen ! ..
reply
so yea on rtx 6000pro gddr7 96 gb on 512 bit bas stil just 34 fps cp2077 veri simple no hope !!!!avrone go bek to keple ferim and pascal max !!! caz tah si all it exist fro real fin . tha si fo tha develepers of new gaems gen if thy wontot surviv this masochizim shit !! ar thay all gon go lak ubisoft -1$ gen ! ..
reply
ketxxx1
This CXL stuff just sounds like a convoluted arse backwards way of what I've been saying for years - increase the bus width available for the CPU from 128bit to 256bit and watch system performance dramatically improve and have a software application that allows you to dictate how much memory a specific application can use.
reply
This CXL stuff just sounds like a convoluted arse backwards way of what I've been saying for years - increase the bus width available for the CPU from 128bit to 256bit and watch system performance dramatically improve and have a software application that allows you to dictate how much memory a specific application can use.
reply
alexbold4611
Well, where is a time then Soviet Union made keyboard from terminal attached to clone of PDP-11 fell to someone foot. Broken bones. Workers comp case. And yes, it is not a joke or fairy tales, keyboard was made from steel and each key have inside small tube with contact pair activated by magnet attached to key cap!
reply
Well, where is a time then Soviet Union made keyboard from terminal attached to clone of PDP-11 fell to someone foot. Broken bones. Workers comp case. And yes, it is not a joke or fairy tales, keyboard was made from steel and each key have inside small tube with contact pair activated by magnet attached to key cap!
reply
myne00
These are like vr goggles.
They come around every 5 or so years and find a couple of niche markets, and then dimms catch up in capacity.
100 years ago, memory was on isa cards.
50 years ago it was on pci cards.
15 years ago ddr2 was on pcie cards.
Optane kinda killed this while it was still alive.
reply
These are like vr goggles.
They come around every 5 or so years and find a couple of niche markets, and then dimms catch up in capacity.
100 years ago, memory was on isa cards.
50 years ago it was on pci cards.
15 years ago ddr2 was on pcie cards.
Optane kinda killed this while it was still alive.
reply
Add a review, comment
Other channel videos
