AMD Radeon RAMDISK - Free 6GB RAMDisk from AMD for All x86 Computers

[caveman-jim]

AMD's new Radeon RAMDisk partnership is now live, and you can get a free trial of the 6Gb version for free. Select second generation APU's are supposed to get the full version for free bundled with them, more details when we have them.

Over the past year, AMD has entered the memory pool fray with an array of AMD-branded memory modules, to the surprise of many. During this time, we’ve been looking for new ways to both enhance the breadth of our memory offerings, and to keep AMD memory top of mind when it comes to your next memory purchase.

Recently we teamed up with Dataram, a top developer of RAMDisk software, to give systems more flexibility and performance with a RAMDisk. A RAMDisk is a software package that reserves a block of your system memory and turns it into a virtual hard drive that is recognized by Windows® with a drive letter (like C:\). Using this RAMDisk can help free your hard drive from unnecessary temporary files, limit unwanted writing to your SSD, and when used correctly, can dramatically accelerate the loading and processing times of games, demanding software suites and web browsing.

This collaboration has also allowed us to develop a free, no-strings-attached trial of the AMD Radeon™ RAMDisk for you to download. This version allows anyone to create a RAMDisk that can reserve up to 4GB of your RAM, while users with AMD Radeon™ memory will automatically be able to reserve up to 6GB. Finally, enthusiasts have the option of upgrading to the AMD Radeon™ RAMDisk Xtreme, which allows users to create RAMDisks up to 64GB for under $20USD1. When creating a RAMDisk drive with this software, it is important not to use up all your available system memory for your RAMDisk.

Read the full details on the AMD Blog and look for our evaluation soon!

[sandorski]

Interesting. A little confused though, is this available for APU users and/or AMD Radeon RAM users?

[Evolver]

Well I fired it up and of course the first thing I did was try some benchmarks so I could ooh and ahh over the big numbers... They were nice and high until the 4K QD32 Write benchmark on CrystalDiskMark where it just freezes. Same thing for AS SSD 4k-64Thrd.

Ran a memtest and everything checked out.

Anyone else having the same issue?

Oh and btw sandorski:

AMD Radeon™ RAMDisk is designed to work with any AMD or Intel-based platform with at least 512MB RAM

[Melchior]

I've used the dataram free version for a year or so now, I haven't run into any benchmarking issues like that. I have run into the occasional sleep problem but I can't be 100% sure that's ramdisk related.

What I want to know is, does the AMD version automatically cache relevant game/software data, or is it like the dataram version in that there's no automatic functionality, it just acts as a really small, super fast drive that you have to install software to on a case by case basis.

[caveman-jim]

It's the dataram software.

[Talon_262]

I wonder how this'll work for a swap drive...

[caveman-jim]

probably not well for windows but for application specific swap/cache files, very well.

[GamerChik3D]

Radeon RAMDisk works on Intel and AMD platforms

Interesting. A little confused though, is this available for APU users and/or AMD Radeon RAM users?

From the amd.com site it breaks it out.
4GB is available for anyone with system memory (corsair, kingston etc.)
6GB seems to be a special offer for anyone who has AMD Radeon memory or plans to buy AMD Radeon memory in the near future
The Xtreme version again is can be used by any system manufacturer

This is not limited to an AMD platform. It works on Intel too which is good.

[Evolver]

Turns out i'm having the same freezing problem with the basic RAMDisk software as well.

I decided to upgrade my bios to see if it could add some stability and now I find out that ASUS has put some bs in their bios to block users with the 6950 flashed to 6970... what a bunch of !@#*%^s

Guess I'll play with that for a while now...

[Crisler]

I will be honest, AMD offering this confuses the hell out of me. The offer is centered on the APU system users,. Well those are the budget users typically which means 8 gig of RAM being the norm. Using the RAM drive will take away from the system performance over all at the end of the day to make a RAMdrive big enough to btoher.

At the end of the day this feels like a gimmick system. I mean look how fast my game laods since it is in a RAM drive. In the end I just do not see any real benefit when I use this.

[caveman-jim]

It's not centered on the APU system users, AMD are going to offer a free RAMDisk Extreme license with the A10 at some point.

There are benefits to having RAM disks, like for example if you're editing a video - 4GB of disk in RAM for your authoring software scratch file would be useful and speed up preview and thumbnail generation while you're working.

[Crisler]

It's not centered on the APU system users, AMD are going to offer a free RAMDisk Extreme license with the A10 at some point.

There are benefits to having RAM disks, like for example if you're editing a video - 4GB of disk in RAM for your authoring software scratch file would be useful and speed up preview and thumbnail generation while you're working.

Okay but unless you have a lot of RAM to start with the lose of the 4 Gig would slow down other apsects fo the work. I mean you need to have over 8 Gig to really benefit from this in any meaningful way and when you have that much RAM you often do not need swap and scratch files as much thus reducing the benefit of the RAM disk.

[Hardwood]

Doesn't work. This is what I get when starting it.

Error 2147024770:Automation error:specified module could not be found. Verify module. Version 4.0.1

Bummer, not that it would be much use in my 4gig system.

[caveman-jim]

Okay but unless you have a lot of RAM to start with the lose of the 4 Gig would slow down other apsects fo the work. I mean you need to have over 8 Gig to really benefit from this in any meaningful way and when you have that much RAM you often do not need swap and scratch files as much thus reducing the benefit of the RAM disk.

This is incorrect, especially for 32-bit apps which predominate today. Many native 64-bit apps don't balloon into memory but instead use scratch files and session data files which can be hundreds of MB in size, upto GB's (think undo files for example). Many apps don't rely on Windows page file but their own paging systems, too.

Take the time to sit and look at the apps not the OS, and see if installing to a persistent RAMdisk might benefit. I think there's some percentage to be gained on an 8GB system.