Registered RAM & Motherboards

[Scootin159]

I konw that the AMD760 chipset requires registered DDR-SDRAM in order to support more than 2 sticks of RAM (and that the tyan variety require registered DDR-SDRAM anyways). My understanding of what registered RAM is, is that they basically add some latches onto the address lines. I can understand (to some extent) as to why this would increase stability, and it makes sense that it would be nessesary for more sticks of RAM, but my question is:

It should add stability to all chipsets right? regardless of the amount of RAM, right (should improve transmissions with just one stick). Why don't all (or at least those aiming for higher-end markets) motherboard manufacturers just integrate the registered part of the RAM stick into their motherboards? This would allow you to use 'regular' RAM (if you have some old stuff lying around), and would increase stability to everyone & give your board a better rep. for being stable.

The reason why I posted this in this forum (and not general hardware) is this: Is this technically possbile? I thought that a registered RAM stick was just a normal one with some extra chips before the connection to the DIMM socket. Couldn't you just move those 'extra chips' to the other side of the DIMM socket (the motherboard)?

 

[MustPost]

Im not sure but I believe since the addressing is different for each chip, only one size of RAM would be able to be used if the extra stuff was built onto the mobo

 

[Athlon4all]

Someone correct me. It has to do with the cycles or something that a unbuffered and a Registered. 760 supports 4 cycles, and unbuffered uses 2 cycles per DIMM, while Registered uses 1 so that's where u can use 4 DIMM's on Registered I think. Someone correct me if I'm wrong

 

[RedBeard0531]

I beleive Abit used TI registers at one point to alow people to add more sticks than the chipset allowed. they put thes only on the last 2 socets so that it would't kill performance. IIRCa register adds 1 to the latecy . I'll linkafy if I can find more info. Crucial/micron actualy has some decent tech pages that aren't just propaganda.