A closer look to DDR 2/3

[Julio Franco]

Six years after the idea was created, DDR-II finally appears to make an entry in the marketplace. At the same time, the graphics version of the new standard, that is GDDR2 has already become obsolete, reasons being high power consumption along with thermal problems that negate the marginal performance increase found over the original DDR design.

Lost Circuits have put up an article explaining what's coming for DDR3 and why it may (or should) be adopted almost inmediately.

 

[Rick]

DDR-2 is going to have a rough time on the market. It might be one of the most short-lived memories introduced, besides BEDO.

It's roughly 50% more and it offers absolutely nothing except perhaps a loss in performance.. For right now, anyhow. The reason being DDR-1 actually offers faster speeds than DDR-2 will offer upon its introduction.

Of course, the immediate plus to DDR-2 will be the ability to have more than 2 modules of memory running at PC-3200 speeds or better. That is currently not possible (or practical, at least) with DDR-1. The reason for this is probably because of signal noise, which tends to be a result of pushing an "aging" technology to the limits. DDR-2 will be more flexible in this respect and I'm sure we will all appreciate the ability to use 3 or 4 modules at a time again.

And of course, once DDR-2 matures, it will certainly be faster. I'm afraid by that time, DDR-3 might be out though.

It's not cost effective and doesn't bring much to the table right now, but I'm sure it will hit the niche market pretty hard and perhaps make a nice marketing gimmick until it matures.