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Why would Intel processors have extremely high memory bandwidths but relatively low memory capacity?

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Umm, the 8GB limit has nothing to do with the processor. . . – surfasb Sep 15 '11 at 2:14
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closed as not constructive by Breakthrough, random♦ Sep 15 '11 at 2:43

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Because you want to read the memory as fast as possible. With that configuration, it will take 380ms to read the entire 8GB of memory. That may seem fast, but 380ms is a long time as far as the processor is concerned.

Considering a modern processor can do billions of floating point operations in a second, that last thing you want is to have it held up waiting for memory access.

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+1 for great answer. So no matter how fast your memory is, the connection needs to handle it? – wizlog Sep 15 '11 at 1:12
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