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Video Card Memory Question

J

JediJeb

Senior member
I have been looking at buying a new video card and have noticed that even cards with the same GPU and maker sometimes have different memory. The pics show one with rectangular memory chips and another with square chips, both with the same amount of memory. Are these two different types of memory or just from two different makers. Is one better than the other.
 
Got the answer:

Rectangular= TSOP type mem chips. Usually limited to bout 275-300MHz operating freq and available in SDR and DDR ram.

Square= BGA type mem chips. These are the newer chip design and able to reach higher freq. DDR ram only.

You really want the BGA (Ball Grid Array) type mem chips. And any video card you buy, especially Ati, you want to make sure there are (4) mem chips per side in an "L" shapped 256bit mem bus config. However the GPU architecture does determine mem bus capability too ie.,128bit or 256bit.

(4) mem chips on one side in a straight line is usually 128bit mem bus, and (2) chips per side a 64bit (really slow and poor performing) mem bus.


thanks to Killrose over in the video card forum.
 
RECTANGULAR is TSOP packaging.
SQUARE is BGA packaging.

DDR2 modules use BGA chips, whereas DDR modules use TSOP chips for example.

BGA has better voltage ratings, and represents the future in terms of memory chip packaging.

BGA is better overall.


 
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