How can the system be bumped-up to the next evolution of RAM-processing..?

[Rick Stevens]

On 11/01/2011 08:08 PM, Marko Vojinovic wrote:
> On Wednesday 02 November 2011 01:56:13 Linda McLeod wrote:
> [snip]
>> Why is there RAM..?  Why can't the OS
>> run its RAM off'n the hd..?
> 
> RAM exists because I/O of a HD is waaay too slow. You can get a feeling just 
> how slow it can get when you open too many apps simultaneously, thus 
> exhausting available RAM and making the OS use the swap partition for extra 
> memory. It's *painfully* slow, the machine becomes practically unusable, and 
> it's a complete waste of cycles of today's fast processors.
> 
> Even the I/O of RAM itself is fairly slow compared to the typical modern 
> processor. That's why processors now have a built-in cache (which is basically 
> a smaller amount of RAM on the processor chip itself), in order to speed up 
> execution of programs and calculations.
> 
> You might then ask "why the processor designers don't put all RAM on the 
> chip?" Because it would be too big, geometrically. In order to make the 
> processor work on a 2GHz frequency or such, the chip surface must be small 
> enough to keep everything in working conditions. Otherwise you run into out-
> of-sync problems, uneven heat and voltage distribution problems, and all sorts 
> of stuff that would make the processor fail. So the bulk of RAM must be 
> separated, on their own chips, and communitace with the processor via the 
> motherboard, which is again quite slow, due to its size and other reasons.

Uhm, Marko, I think Linda was trying to be facetious.  Good info from
you, though.  :-)
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