DDR3 for PC

F

Fort_Major

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 22, 2006
Messages
425
DDR2 seems to be approaching DDR800 and DDR 1066. A friend of mine told me that DDR2 would then jump to 1600, but searching for DDR1600 seems to bring up only DDR 3. Is DDR 3 not that far on the horizon? or will DDR 2 keep scaling till we hit 1600?
 
Do we know what the full potential of DDR2 is? Anyway, AMD still doesn't have any DDR2 CPU's on the market. But people do want the best so... :D
 
1066 to 1600 is an abnormally large leap. We havent seen ICs yet that really break 1300.
 
I had an *early* sample DDR3 device in my hand about 10 months ago at a meeting with some (I'll get sued if I say who) tech and quality guys. There wasn't a PCB to put it onto at the time, and I don't believe that there was a memory controller device to make it work either. Not sure about today, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there still isn't the necessary hardware beyond some final test stations.

DDR3 just might 'fix' some of the problems that have held back the potential of DDR2. Wait and see...
 
Ideally, your speed grades will be:

667, 1000, 1066, 1200, 1333, and so on.
 
FullertonAve said:
DDR3 just might 'fix' some of the problems that have held back the potential of DDR2. Wait and see...
Click to expand...
yeah, the same way ddr2 "fixed" the problems ddr1 has. i'm not holding my breath for thr 3rd revision
 
I don't think that design parameters for DDR2 were ever intended to fix any problems of DDR1, with the possible exception that it's not much fun to fab memory cells that reliably kick over much above 200MHz. So, by repeating the old refrain of 'increase effective buswidth to fake out a speed increase', the JEDEC folks thought they had a sure winner. (in my admittedly limited experience, the only substantive problem DDR2 experiences seems to effectively be managing the interleaving of the two data streams without putting a lot of weird reflections into the system...not sure why this is so troublesome as mux/demux has been around forever)

After the r[e]ambus debacle, the JEDEC committee going the opposite direction was probably as much a matter of pride as practicality.
 
<tinfoil hat>
do you work for a company that fab's dram ic's?
</tinfoil hat>

and >200mhz actually seems to be relatively easy with ddr1, it's pushing past 300mhz that's really tough
 
All I can imagine that DDR3 would bring to the table is a lower operating voltage, higher latencies, and higher clockspeed. Same thing as the move from DDR1 to DDR2.
 
(cf)Eclipse said:
<tinfoil hat>
do you work for a company that fab's dram ic's?
</tinfoil hat>
Click to expand...

<propellor-beanie>
Not since '98. :D That oughta give away who it was...at least with the hint that they ceased to exist then.
</propellor-beanie>

and >200mhz actually seems to be relatively easy with ddr1, it's pushing past 300mhz that's really tough
Click to expand...

True dat. But yeah, I don't remember seeing any OEMs selling DDR1 chips *rated* above 400MHz although that may have changed since I last looked. In fairness, I've been out of the mem biz for almost a year and only worked on stuff for server OEMs then, no performance kit for enthusiasts.

Going to 90nm seems to have made a big difference in performance. When 65nm product releases in a few months, we'll see if those'll bump up to the next level.

If the guys I know are right...DDR3 oughta be workable. It's clear that they've been burned pretty badly by the DDR2 experience and can't afford a repeat. If I get some time, I'll read the design docs for DDR3 and get more familiar with what's being done.
 
:D

yeah, i agree with you though.. a repeat of ddr2's introduction can't happen again. products need to be FASTER than what they're replacing at launch or adoption will be slow :(
 
So there's no known solidified deadline for DDR3 then? Somebody was acting like DDR2 1600 would be on the market this fall. I went and did some research but couldn't find anything except that the 1600 speed he was talking about was for DDR3 but I couldn't get any dates or other information.
 
sadly, not really. i'm expecting around late '07 for things to start picking up on the ddr3 front, but we'll see.

ddr2 though.. will definitly make it to 800mhz, and probably pretty soon. i'm counting on amd's memory controller to do something a bit extra for us :D
 
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