DDR vs GDDR3?

[SunnyD]

Is it just the max clock speed of the memory that's the difference? Or is there more to it than that?

 

[Matthias99]

GDDR2/3, like DDR2, is internally clocked at half speed and interleaves accesses (which lets it reach much higher clockspeeds). They do a bunch of other stuff to decrease latency as well, which is why GDDR3 is significantly faster than DDR2.

It's probably easier to just think of it as faster (but more complex and expensive) DDR. There are physical differences, but it basically acts a lot like very fast DDR2.

 

[SunnyD]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
GDDR2/3, like DDR2, is internally clocked at half speed and interleaves accesses (which lets it reach much higher clockspeeds). They do a bunch of other stuff to decrease latency as well, which is why GDDR3 is significantly faster than DDR2.

It's probably easier to just think of it as faster (but more complex and expensive) DDR. There are physical differences, but it basically acts a lot like very fast DDR2.

Ah, so rather than just designing the chips to support higher clock (usually by sacrificing latency) that actually worked latency into the mix as well. Okay. Works for me.