INTEL Turbo Memory Is a Dud

Remember INTEL's Robson technology? In case you don't, here's a little feedback. When INTEL announced that they were planning to roll out a new laptop series based on 800MHz FSB Meroms they also claimed that they would integrate a flash-cache directly onto the motherboard in order to use it as a supplementary cache by Windows Vista.

Intel Turbo Memory (or Robson) technology allows Microsoft Windows Vista to pre-cache some portions of needed data directly into the cache in order to use them without having to load them from the hard drive. The advantage of flash resides in its non-existant latency and as a result that can speed things up a lot in Vista especially since the flash will hold only data which is needed most and that will be loaded lots of times onto the Dram cells.

The new operating system produced by Microsoft has an intelligent (but very aggressive) flash cache system which includes modules such as SuperFetch, ReadyBoost, ReadyDrive, and ReadyBoot. All of them can take advantage of the flash cache, it doesn't matter where it is located. As a result such an OS can prefetch the needed code from a flash cache hidden onto the motherboard, inside the hard drive or even connected at an USB header. But as it turns out, motherboard integrated cache gives the best results.

But that doesn't mean motherboard manufacturers will integrate this feature in their future products. And as strange as it may seem, the reason is cash-related. Currently a Turbo Memory 1GB module for desktops costs $23. An I/O controller and a flash memory chip (again produced by INTEL) will cost about $15 which is even less. However if you put it inside a $100 MoBo you will up its price by 15%. And according to the manufacturers, that's too much.

Most producers simply claim that the speed boost is not significant and because of that they are pretty reluctant when it comes to flash integration. Moreover some of them say that they prefer to leave this option to the user as one can buy a very fast USB stick and use it in the same way. Evidently it won't be quite as fast but it's always better to have the choice. Maybe.

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