Stupid questoin...NVRAM now on desktops?

[mrspm2003]

Long story short, I went to a competition dealing with Computer Maint. Well, there was also a sub division of this competition dealing with custom pcs and case mods. I saw a watercooled rig surrounded by many people, and the guy was giving a speech on his rig. A question from one of the judges came up as to what RAM he was running, he said PC2700. After that, she (the judge) asked why he didn't use NVRAM, and he responded because they're many problems assoicated with it, such as memory leaks, if a program won't release the RAM after it's closed, a simple reboot wouldn't clear that ram, so you'd have to manually unplug the RAM from the mobo to clear it and release that ram. During this time I was like whoa, as I've been out of the hardware scene for quite a while (last I remember was seagate releasing a SATA drive). Now, is NVRAM really available on desktop end motherboards? What about cost? We all know static ram is expensive... or was he bsing? I'm confused

[s1203372]

No, NVRAM is not available yet for desktop memory. Also, SRAM is not NV - power it off, it loses all data. It just doesn't need to be refreshed.

[Isezumi]

NVRAM=Flash Media

[a ronin]

Flash memory for a motherboard? Who was talking out of their arse here?

Hmm..

[Ashpool]

Originally posted by a ronin
Flash memory for a motherboard? Who was talking out of their arse here?

Hmm..

Pop open any buisness-class router and they're there, all nestled in their respective RAM slots. Usually used for storing startup/runnning configs (what protocols to use, etc.).

And if you want an example on you're plain-jane box, look at you're BIOS - It's pure flash memory (EEPROM).

[mrspm2003]

Originally posted by Ashpool


Pop open any buisness-class router and they're there, all nestled in their respective RAM slots. Usually used for storing startup/runnning configs (what protocols to use, etc.).

And if you want an example on you're plain-jane box, look at you're BIOS - It's pure flash memory (EEPROM).

But we're talking about using actual system RAM as NVRam. Also, thanks for clearing that up, I was always under the impression that SRAM was NV. So either the judge didn't know what she was talking about and the kid followed to not sound dumb, or am I missing something? Looked and looked, no NVRam yet. Thanks for all the help guys.

[Ashpool]

Originally posted by mrspm2003
But we're talking about using actual system RAM as NVRam. Also, thanks for clearing that up, I was always under the impression that SRAM was NV. So either the judge didn't know what she was talking about and the kid followed to not sound dumb, or am I missing something? Looked and looked, no NVRam yet. Thanks for all the help guys.

Probably both. Anybody would know that NVRAM would never be SDRAM if they knew what both meant.

But I am very impressed by how the guy manupulated the question, making the judge sound even dumber Even I wouldn't respond like that.

[mrspm2003]

Originally posted by Ashpool


Probably both. Anybody would know that NVRAM would never be SDRAM if they knew what both meant.

But I am very impressed by how the guy manupulated the question, making the judge sound even dumber Even I wouldn't respond like that.

I didn't say I misunderstood SDRAM to be NVRAM, I said SRAM, as in static, to be NVRAM. But yeah, that left me wondering too. Weird I guess

[SkyDog]

Just to add another 2 cents... If you want an example of SRAM, that's what cache memory generally is.

[Ashpool]

Originally posted by mrspm2003
I didn't say I misunderstood SDRAM to be NVRAM, I said SRAM, as in static, to be NVRAM. But yeah, that left me wondering too. Weird I guess

Bleh, so I couldn't read