AMD Teams Up With Patriot And VisionTek To Take Radeon DDR3 Memory To Retail Channel

[btarunr]

In August, we got a first glimpse of AMD Radeon-branded DDR3 memory modules sold at select stores in Japan. At the time, AMD denied plans of directly selling AMD-branded memory to customers, and that it was determining if the sale of AMD Radeon-branded memory through channel partners is a viable opportunity. Today there is concrete evidence that AMD wants to go directly to customers with their DDR3 memory products, and has partnered with two well known companies in its effort.

Presenting a more polished AMD memory module lineup. The first ones (pictured in the link above) looked not much more than bare, generic-looking DDR3 modules with Radeon logo stickers. The new ones look better designed for customers, since good product design pays heavily in the retail channel. The new modules use black colored PCBs, metal heatspreaders, and red colored full-length stickers. A confirmation that these products are headed to the retail channel is the box. OEMs don't buy memory modules in boxes, they buy them in trays. AMD has a nice-looking product box design with a carbon-fiber pattern and appropriate branding.



What does AMD-branded memory bring to the table that most other brands don't? To begin with, AMD claims that they will be rock-stable with AMD processor platforms. Next, they lack Intel XMP profiles, and instead use either high-spec JEDEC profiles, or AMD Black Edition profiles to achieve high DRAM speeds. AMD memory modules are designed to work with AMD Overdrive software to allow fine-tuning of various memory parameters such as clock speeds, voltages, and timings. Also featured are high-speed data transfer based on 8n-prefetch pipelined architecture, Bi-directional differential data strobe (DQS and /DQS), DLL aligns DQ and DQS transitions with CK transitions, and Internal self-calibration.

AMD is partnering two rather familiar brands. First is Patriot Memory, we suspect that Patriot Memory is the OEM behind AMD branded modules. Patriot is a reputed memory vendor among enthusiasts, and can deliver in volumes. The other partner is VisionTek. A well-known AMD Radeon graphics card vendor, VisionTek has the distributor base needed to market these modules. VisionTek could even sub-brand these modules.

AMD has three lines of memory module products, tabled below:

[cdawall]

still only 1866mhz. weird wonder if they will have a faster profile.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Seems to me they should not worry about system memory and focus more on making their CPU's better unless they were thinking of completely switching gears.

[cdawall]

Originally Posted by CrAsHnBuRnXp

Seems to me they should not worry about system memory and focus more on making their CPU's better unless they were thinking of completely switching gears.

Yes but ram makes money as well they might just be stepping out to make a little more money to have revenue to make better CPU's.

[laszlo]

why only memory and not also mobos?

[Widjaja]

I wonder if this is all about making AMD look like they have a hand in more things than Intel and nVidia?

Not about being the highest performer but, getting money off AMD devotees who simply want machine which is mainly AMD product based.

Sort of like Apple does.
Apple releases some new iCrap and apple devotees want it regardless of being all that or not.

[nINJAkECIL]

Red-Black combo is always welcome in my book.
Too bad I'm not using AMD cpus,nor had any plan to do so.

[CrAsHnBuRnXp]

Originally Posted by cdawall

Yes but ram makes money as well they might just be stepping out to make a little more money to have revenue to make better CPU's.

The way it comes off to me is "We aren't doing so well in CPU sales so we are going to enter the system memory market on the side and see if we cant bring in some much needed profit that you guys think we really need (cause we really do),but we deny because we're too embarrassed to admit it."

[xenocide]

No mention of the latency or price in that chart--should be hilarious.

[Widjaja]

I have to admit a red and black only AMD motherboard would be nice looking.
Could imagine at this time they would not have the financial backing to start such a venture while releasing competitive motherboards.

[Aleksander]

Nice idea of creating those ram. Normally, when you come to the market,
you will have low to middle performance first to see how much is the revenue

[xaira]

amd, im just letting you know that i dont buy memory with heatspreaders....

more than likely they want to take advantage of the AMD fans who would buy a sapphire board, a radeon card and a bulldozer cpu, also, branching off into more areas of the tech industry would look more appealing to shareholders

[de.das.dude]

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! i have been waiting for this for soooo long.

[Lionheart]

Nice colour scheme but Bulldozer has aids & it needs a cure (revision) so......I'll stick to what I got for now ^_^

[FreedomEclipse]

If the ram market was really that profitable. OCZ wouldn't have left it. imo they will make money but not in the quantities they are thinking it would

[laszlo]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

If the ram market was really that profitable. OCZ wouldn't have left it. imo they will make money but not in the quantities they are thinking it would

OCZ has one of the bigger return rates for memory no wonder they quit;quality is more important that the brand name....;my personal opinion is that they are overrated due name ....

[FreedomEclipse]

Before they quit, I had used a lot of their ram for my builds and builds for other people. I have never had any issues what so ever with their ram

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

If the ram market was really that profitable. OCZ wouldn't have left it. imo they will make money but not in the quantities they are thinking it would

OCZ sucked at RAM. Now they suck at SSD.

[de.das.dude]

Originally Posted by btarunr

OCZ sucked at RAM. Now they suck at SSD.

i have 1066 DDR2 platinum and they are pretty awesome. gives me close to DDR3 performance. why do they suck? IYO?

[FreedomEclipse]

Originally Posted by btarunr

OCZ sucked at RAM. Now they suck at SSD.

My OCZ Vertex2 2E never skipped a beat.

[NdMk2o1o]

Oh it's another OCZ sux thread, could of sworn it was about AMD RAM

[Zubasa]

I don't see are problem as long as they are reasonable priced.
Also these RAM will most likely come with B.E.M.P. which should be nice for noobs and less of a hassle.

[de.das.dude]

BEMP? i know a friend who has a mid range asus mobo with 880G chipset, he uses a BE CPU, and kingston value memory. he said he can easily set memory clocks (even 1600 and 1866) withough changing reference clock. is that BEMP?

[Efraim]

let's just hope it lives up to the ads.
Maybe it's imprtant to reshape the image that's been broken the past few years(apart fro GPU side)
I'm a fanboy, and am not ashamed for it.
If AMD fail to maintain a competition, we'll come into an era where processor are with unreasonably price tag thanks to monopoly.

[Fx]

Originally Posted by CrAsHnBuRnXp

Seems to me they should not worry about system memory and focus more on making their CPU's better unless they were thinking of completely switching gears.

you need to switch gears and realize that they arent just a cpu company anymore

they have diversified...

Originally Posted by CrAsHnBuRnXp

The way it comes off to me is "We aren't doing so well in CPU sales so we are going to enter the system memory market on the side and see if we cant bring in some much needed profit that you guys think we really need (cause we really do),but we deny because we're too embarrassed to admit it."

diversifying means good business which means more money. look it up

Originally Posted by xaira

amd, im just letting you know that i dont buy memory with heatspreaders....

more than likely they want to take advantage of the AMD fans who would buy a sapphire board, a radeon card and a bulldozer cpu, also, branching off into more areas of the tech industry would look more appealing to shareholders

it comes in 3 lines. the first two have optional heatspreaders. the third doesnt because it needs to radiate more heat

Originally Posted by FreedomEclipse

If the ram market was really that profitable. OCZ wouldn't have left it. imo they will make money but not in the quantities they are thinking it would

that may be true but AMD will have synergy with this move. many people will hopefully have less compatibility issues with AMD motherboards and cpus and if for no other reason people will buy this because of an all-AMD theme or just for the consistent color theme. this should attract many consumers rather quickly