Thinkpads Forum

What will that the optimal amount be? Suddenly 2 GB modules is affordable.

I guess all of you with small amount of memory should go out and buy now. 2 x 1 GB is now less than 100$ for both in Kingston or Crucial or other in-expensive brands.

I'm not sure about optimal.... but for max. Ultimate and Business (x64) maximum is 128GB.

And the limit of the T60?

The chipset in the T60(p) is limited to 3GB regardless if the OS is 32 bit or 64 bit. The new Santa Rosa chipset in the T61(P)s will see up to 4GB

And hopefully 8 GB once 4 GB modules are available!

maximus_ wrote:The chipset in the T60(p) is limited to 3GB regardless if the OS is 32 bit or 64 bit. The new Santa Rosa chipset in the T61(P)s will see up to 4GB

Am I reading this correctly... The T60p maximum memory is capped at 3GB even with Vista installed. Is there anyway this can be fixed short of selling the T60p and is this also the case for all T60's?

It's true for all pre-Santa Rosa laptops -- none of them can address the full 4 GB of memory, regardless of the OS. The Santa Rosa-based ThinkPads (T61, R61 and soon X61) can access the full 4 GB when used with a 64-bit OS.

so the question becomes can a santa rosa chip be installed on a T60p?

gt5l wrote:so the question becomes can a santa rosa chip be installed on a T60p?

As far as I am informed the CPU is different. As far as the chipset iis surface mounted (Soldered SMD chip) so I am quite certain that you can forget it.

shalliday wrote:

maximus_ wrote:The chipset in the T60(p) is limited to 3GB regardless if the OS is 32 bit or 64 bit. The new Santa Rosa chipset in the T61(P)s will see up to 4GB

Am I reading this correctly... The T60p maximum memory is capped at 3GB even with Vista installed. Is there anyway this can be fixed short of selling the T60p and is this also the case for all T60's?

This is the case with all t60s as they are pre Santa Rosa. Keep in mind with Santa Rosa if you install 8GB whenever 4GB sticks are available you will only see 4GB as this is the chipsets limitation and not the OS. There is no way around this as you can't replace the chipset on the MB.

maximus_ wrote:Keep in mind with Santa Rosa if you install 8GB whenever 4GB sticks are available you will only see 4GB as this is the chipsets limitation and not the OS. There is no way around this as you can't replace the chipset on the MB.

I don't think we know this to be true -- the new ThinkPad models' specs do say 4 GB maximum, but there are no 4 GB modules on the market, so 2x2 GB is all that can be currently installed. (Some older ThinkPads also support larger modules than were available and specified at the time of introduction.)

In fact, I would bet money that Santa Rosa will support higher memory densities than those available today. However, we won't know this for a fact until such memory modules become available.

We do know for a fact that the T61/p chipset (GM965 or PM965) support up to 4GB of physical memory and no more.

http://download.intel.com/design/mobile ... 627301.pdf

It's quite a hack to get it to use all 4GB too. (Stolen memory reclamation?) Reminds me of bank swapping, but now it's all done transparently in hardware.

I am really finding it hard to believe that in this day and age this type of memory restriction still exists in new laptops because of some very short sighted hardware limitations. Seems like a total lack of forward thinking by Intel's design team to me. Unbelievable!

whizkid wrote:We do know for a fact that the T61/p chipset (GM965 or PM965) support up to 4GB of physical memory and no more.

http://download.intel.com/design/mobile ... 627301.pdf

It's quite a hack to get it to use all 4GB too. (Stolen memory reclamation?) Reminds me of bank swapping, but now it's all done transparently in hardware.

Based on reviewing the doc (thanks for the link!) that is indeed a very disappointing -- and short-sighted -- design effort by the Intel design team. It sure won't make me feel any pride about those "Centrino" decals ...

What kind of hardware limitations are those?

Is this for real? What's the advantage of Santa Rosa then? X3100 graphics?

whizkid wrote:We do know for a fact that the T61/p chipset (GM965 or PM965) support up to 4GB of physical memory and no more.

http://download.intel.com/design/mobile ... 627301.pdf

It's quite a hack to get it to use all 4GB too. (Stolen memory reclamation?) Reminds me of bank swapping, but now it's all done transparently in hardware.

That is a great link, thanks for sharing.

shalliday wrote:I am really finding it hard to believe that in this day and age this type of memory restriction still exists in new laptops because of some very short sighted hardware limitations. Seems like a total lack of forward thinking by Intel's design team to me. Unbelievable!

tell me about it. i've always wanted to stuff more memory than the motherboard/chipset would allow in every case. It's very annoying and there's little excuse for it if you ask me. In just about every computer over the last 12 years max'ed out at half of where I wanted. Ditto with this T43 (maxes at 2GB, and I really wanted 4GB). It forces me to keep a test desktop (Optiplex 745) and a test server (ProLiant DL380 G5) at work so I can work with large memory.

With the fantastic performance of the Pentium M and now Core 2 Duo you'd think we'd finally be seeing max memory sizes that more closely matched desktop computers (up to 8GB now in many case). But you're right, we still lag behind, and I'm sick of it.

(edit: PS: The dirty little secret, and just a plain fact of life is, for high-end mobile computing, you need to plan on machine replacement every 18-24 months. It's no secret that that is our replacement cycle for high-end and executive users at my company. Regular mobile users are on a 36-48 month cycle. It's just been that way because there's really no way around it in many cases. And it gets expensive. )

3GBs only, even if you have 4gb installed. Checked myself

leegaard wrote:What will that the optimal amount be? Suddenly 2 GB modules is affordable.

I guess all of you with small amount of memory should go out and buy now. 2 x 1 GB is now less than 100$ for both in Kingston or Crucial or other in-expensive brands.

Off topic - where do you find 2x 1 GB sticks for less than $100?

Harryc wrote:Off topic - where do you find 2x 1 GB sticks for less than $100?

... you don't ...

Dimitri_P wrote:

Harryc wrote:Off topic - where do you find 2x 1 GB sticks for less than $100?

... you don't ...

I didn't think so ...

Dimitri_P wrote:

Harryc wrote:Off topic - where do you find 2x 1 GB sticks for less than $100?

... you don't ...

Go find your currency converter...

http://www.itbutikken.dk/i/192894/1.htm

2 pieces of these will cost 94 US$ included VAT

Nevermind, I thought he was talking about 2GB sticks

I picked up 2 1GB sticks for my T41P at Fry's electronics for $72 each. I point this out because RAM for the T60/T60P line is much cheaper than plain old DDR333 SODIMM's. I bout the RAM about 6 weeks ago for a comparison.

Dimitri_P wrote:Nevermind, I thought he was talking about 2GB sticks

Well - Accurate reading is a good thing.

But I admit that its possible to confuse the message in the body and in the header.

I guess its quite possible to get DDR2 5300 SODIMM 1 GB for around 50$ each, in the US too?

I have just ordered a 2 GB for around 190$ which is around a third compared to 2 months ago.