ThinkPad P1 Gen 7: LPCAMM2-powered reparability of new Lenovo laptop praised in new teardown

[Redaktion]

Lenovo's ThinkPad P1 Gen 7 is now officially the first laptop to have been torn down by iFixit in search of its LPCAMM2 module. The emerging RAM type is hailed as a more powerful, efficient and sustainable form of memory thanks to its ease of removal from its place relative to a PC's CPU - which also boosts the ability to replace or upgrade it.  

https://www.notebookcheck.net/ThinkPad-P1-Gen-7-LPCAMM2-powered-reparability-of-new-Lenovo-laptop-praised-in-new-teardown.835319.0.html

[Alexander_]

Dell's CAMM in 2023 in Samsung and only a year later in Lenovo? 😃

P.S. The news is really good. Laptop and PC manufacturers are switching to more efficient memory with easy replacement*

[NikoB]

Now let's move on to things that are much more unpleasant for the consumer:
1. 32GB 5600 module costs $210. Despite the fact that DDR5 5600 costs $97. From the same company Crucial (for example).
2. These modules DO NOT provide any real significant speed advantages.
3. The declared lower consumption with the DO prefix must be proven in practice. In fact, the module consumption will change by 1-5% of the SoC consumption.

What do we actually have? That manufacturers are colluding to switch to a rare and expensive (at retail prices) type of memory under the pretext of "optimization," which does not give anything, but reduces competition by an order of magnitude, because these modules are practically not on sale in any store with rare exceptions and the prices are 2 times higher than now; besides, vile and greedy laptop manufacturers can justify increased prices for their models, where even with DDR4/DDR5 the prices for memory modules were inflated 3-4 times, like the prices for SSDs. Moreover, both memory modules and ssds come with a general warranty as part of the laptop, which is most often 1 year and rarely 2-3 years. Despite the fact that in retail most DDR4/5 memory modules come with a 5-10 year warranty, and 5 summer on SSDs of all leading brands at a much lower price than as part of a laptop.

Do you still need these stupid and super expensive LPCAMM2 modules?

[Brz]

Now let's move on to things that are much more unpleasant for the consumer:
1. 32GB 5600 module costs $210. Despite the fact that DDR5 5600 costs $97. From the same company Crucial (for example).
2. These modules DO NOT provide any real significant speed advantages.
3. The declared lower consumption with the DO prefix must be proven in practice. In fact, the module consumption will change by 1-5% of the SoC consumption.

What do we actually have? That manufacturers are colluding to switch to a rare and expensive (at retail prices) type of memory under the pretext of "optimization," which does not give anything, but reduces competition by an order of magnitude, because these modules are practically not on sale in any store with rare exceptions and the prices are 2 times higher than now; besides, vile and greedy laptop manufacturers can justify increased prices for their models, where even with DDR4/DDR5 the prices for memory modules were inflated 3-4 times, like the prices for SSDs. Moreover, both memory modules and ssds come with a general warranty as part of the laptop, which is most often 1 year and rarely 2-3 years. Despite the fact that in retail most DDR4/5 memory modules come with a 5-10 year warranty, and 5 summer on SSDs of all leading brands at a much lower price than as part of a laptop.

Do you still need these stupid and super expensive LPCAMM2 modules?

chill out, it'll get cheaper with time, and also, chinese factories will be pumping them out in a bit, there's no lock in...any removable , upgradable component is better than none

[A]

Dell's CAMM in 2023 in Samsung and only a year later in Lenovo? 😃

P.S. The news is really good. Laptop and PC manufacturers are switching to more efficient memory with easy replacement*

That was CAMM1, which was Dell's proprietary thing, after Dell sent it for standardization, CAMM2 was made which is what is in this laptop

Now let's move on to things that are much more unpleasant for the consumer:
1. 32GB 5600 module costs $210. Despite the fact that DDR5 5600 costs $97. From the same company Crucial (for example).
2. These modules DO NOT provide any real significant speed advantages.
3. The declared lower consumption with the DO prefix must be proven in practice. In fact, the module consumption will change by 1-5% of the SoC consumption.

What do we actually have? That manufacturers are colluding to switch to a rare and expensive (at retail prices) type of memory under the pretext of "optimization," which does not give anything, but reduces competition by an order of magnitude, because these modules are practically not on sale in any store with rare exceptions and the prices are 2 times higher than now; besides, vile and greedy laptop manufacturers can justify increased prices for their models, where even with DDR4/DDR5 the prices for memory modules were inflated 3-4 times, like the prices for SSDs. Moreover, both memory modules and ssds come with a general warranty as part of the laptop, which is most often 1 year and rarely 2-3 years. Despite the fact that in retail most DDR4/5 memory modules come with a 5-10 year warranty, and 5 summer on SSDs of all leading brands at a much lower price than as part of a laptop.

Do you still need these stupid and super expensive LPCAMM2 modules?

New stuff costing more is nothing new, DDR5 was also more expensive when it came out. You are paying the upfront R&D and equipment cost until it scales

Weren't you all about increasing memory width? I guess you finally admit that memory width provides not much significant speed advantages

The real benefit of this in my opinion is that manufacturers have 0 excuse now to solder LPDDR

[A]

Also, I took a look at current prices of CAMM2 modules

Crucial 32GB LPCAMM2 LPDDR5x-7500 for $175, $157.5 after 10% off coupon
Crucial 64GB LPCAMM2 LPDDR5x-7500 for $330, $297 after 10% off coupon

And this is directly from Crucial which is MSRP, generally when it hits stores it will be cheaper

[NikoB]

I guess you finally admit that memory width provides not much significant speed advantages

What kind of wild nonsense is this? Of course it does, otherwise the servers would not have installed HBM3e with a 1024-bit bus, soldering it as close as possible to the SoC to reduce latency.

These new modules do not improve frequencies and delays in any way, but they cost 2 times more (minimum). And yet they are rare, which forces you to take only the expensive ones.

Everything else is marketing nonsense for ordinary idiots.

If you want to increase the memory frequency, solder it right next to the SoC on a motherboard of at least 32GB.

Do you want a fast igpu in a mainstream laptop/PC? - solder 16-32GB HBM3+ with a 512/1024 bit bus directly into the SoC chiplet, getting real 250GB/s-1TB/s, and not the shameful current 50-90.

When there is mass production and competition from dozens of suppliers, prices quickly fall significantly. When there are several, a stable oligopoly develops, which can only be violated by force by anti-monopoly authorities if their officials are not corrupt and not idiots who were accepted, contrary to the laws of meritocracy, as is now customary in the US.

[NikoB]

I am a giant fascist who hates good things

[NikoB]

Another idiot masquerading as me, but all these idiots are betrayed by only one thing - they are not able to write even 2-3 paragraphs of logically coherent and intelligent text, because they are endlessly stupid compared to me. =)

[Hotz]

2. These modules DO NOT provide any real significant speed advantages.

They should bring an advantage when using integrated graphics, but I'm not sure how much. I would like to see comparisons of devices with exact same specs, but one with SODIMM-5600, SODIMM-6400, LPCAMM2-7500....

[Hotz]

(that comparison is something I would like to see from laptop reviewers...)

[Hotz]

(but whatever, I don't really care about now, as it will probably take some years to become more widespread...)

[NikoB]

(but whatever, I don't really care about now, as it will probably take some years to become more widespread...)

In fact, every sane consumer should be concerned about this, because... a change in the standard always leads to a deliberate reduction in the range of modules that can be inserted into new models, competition and an increase in prices due to this. This is how it was originally intended.

The main thing that these modules should have provided right away (I emphasize again IMMEDIATELY) is at least a 256-bit bus and a minimum frequency of 7500. There is nothing of this. This is 100% a scam of suckers for money and nothing more.

[NikoB]

And yes, I have read the product specifications page for all Intel processors. Yes, it does say "Max # of Memory Channels: 2", but what reason do I have to pay any attention to that. This new memory standard should force the processors to simply accept more memory channels or else it is simply a scam, a ruse to rip more money out of clueless consumers. As the informed buyer I am, I will never buy anything other than SODIMM memory even if it means I have to only buy old hardware going forward.

They should just put LPDDR5X on a SODIMM, why can't they do that? That baffles me the most, it's as if they think we are stupid. The chips are available, and all I hear is bogus explanations such as "signal integrity" and "the chips operate at low voltage so noise can interfere as the traces get longer" and then show me datasheets demonstrating this. Like, do they think I'm stupid?

[Hotz]

2. These modules DO NOT provide any real significant speed advantages.

I'm quoting you again here, as you are right. Someone posted PCMark10 test results in a forum, which show LPCAMM2-7500 having 7% improvement compared to a 5600-SODIMM in video and 3D usage (the things which need it most porbably). Ugh... what a joke.

This new memory standard should force the processors to simply accept more memory channels or else it is simply a scam, a ruse to rip more money out of clueless consumers. As the informed buyer I am, I will never buy anything other than SODIMM memory even if it means I have to only buy old hardware going forward.

They should just put LPDDR5X on a SODIMM, why can't they do that? That baffles me the most, it's as if they think we are stupid.

That's it probably. It would require more channel, but they won't give us that. What a joke. And yes, they could put LPDDR5x on SODIMM as well.