Thursday, January 15th 2009
Intel and AMD Postpone 100% DDR3 Transition
Leading CPU makers Intel and AMD have adopted memory standards in fairly quick succession in the past. This however, doesn't seem to be the case with DDR3. AMD is yet to release a CPU that supports DDR3 memory, and is two years behind Intel with its DDR3 implementation plans. Intel on the other hand has managed 100% DDR3 dependency with only its premium Core i7 platform, with DDR3 not completely replacing DDR2 in any of its mainstream or value lineups.
Market factors, namely the DRAM manufacturing industry, are increasingly posing difficulties to CPU makers to bring DDR3 memory at a consumer-friendly price point. With manufacturing costs refusing to come down and the Core i7 not able generate the expected demand that justifies selling triple channel kits at sub-$100 price-points, CPU makers are rethinking their large-scale DDR3 standard transition plans for their entire lineups. Intel on its part is contemplating on postponing its 5-series mainstream platform for the Intel Core i5 series processors. AMD on the other hand, is still struggling with technical difficulties in achieving stability and compatibility with DDR3 memory on its DDR3-supportive memory controllers the upcoming AM3-socket CPUs come with. So the company is also unlikely to transition to DDR3 until it is able to come out with a workable BIOS, sources add. It could be as long as 2010 by when a 100% industry-wide implementation of DDR3 can take place.
Source:
DigiTimes
Market factors, namely the DRAM manufacturing industry, are increasingly posing difficulties to CPU makers to bring DDR3 memory at a consumer-friendly price point. With manufacturing costs refusing to come down and the Core i7 not able generate the expected demand that justifies selling triple channel kits at sub-$100 price-points, CPU makers are rethinking their large-scale DDR3 standard transition plans for their entire lineups. Intel on its part is contemplating on postponing its 5-series mainstream platform for the Intel Core i5 series processors. AMD on the other hand, is still struggling with technical difficulties in achieving stability and compatibility with DDR3 memory on its DDR3-supportive memory controllers the upcoming AM3-socket CPUs come with. So the company is also unlikely to transition to DDR3 until it is able to come out with a workable BIOS, sources add. It could be as long as 2010 by when a 100% industry-wide implementation of DDR3 can take place.
29 Comments on Intel and AMD Postpone 100% DDR3 Transition
Lets hop they do it soonthough cause I am going to need DDR3 soon.
that said, this is IMHO a GOOD MOVE ddr3 dosnt really offer anything major, specly not over some of the latist ddr2 kits, just think, this gives dram makers more time to put out even larger faster ddr2 kits that will be cheap enought anybody can afford them!!!!
hell that gskill PI ddr2 800 4-4-4-12@1.8v kit is an insain deal, 45-50bucks shiped per 4gb.........so for 100bucks you can have some extreamly fast extreamly overclockable ddr2 that will run at good/great latancys.
get the latancy down and clock up and ddr2 can rivel ddr3 for perf.
this is what i was saying a while back to somebody, DDR3 cheapo kits are 2x the price of equivlant performing ddr2 kits normaly for 1/2 the capacity, and the "good stuff" is WAY overpriced, just NOT WORTH IT.
phenom2 dosnt need ddr3, It needs low latancy decent clocked ddr2 as all other amd chips do, oh and more mature bios, in some boards phenom1 gained 10% or more from a simple bios update, optimize the bios code=better performance=happier customers and better benchie scores.
afik ddr2 can be made on smaller prosesses, would be these hynix sticks i have are infact.
And DDR2 being called DDR2 because it's 90nm?
But, seriously, this happened the same with DDR vs DDR2, it just the price of DDR2 was cheaper.
DDR, DDR2, DDR3, latency, they keep going up, and I'm sure it will stay this way.
People will adopt DDR3 the way it is, it's just not soon.
As a general rule of thumb, divide the frequency by the CAS to get a rough idea how different speeds and latencies stack up per clock.
For instance, 800/CAS4 = 200 while 1066/CAS5 = 213.2. That means 1066 CAS is slightly faster per clock.
It isn't always that way, on a pre-i7 Intel, the chipset plays a major role, and sub-timings can play a role as well, on both AMD and Intel, but for the most part, the above equation is an excellent indicator.