What's after DDRII?

[Rapsven]

Is it going to be the stuff they use in the NV40/R420 cards, GDDRIII?

What happened to Rambus and that XDR RAM thing?

 

[biostud]

They already use GDDRIII, and suposedly the next playstation will use XDR-ram

 

[Jiggz]

DDR4 or Quad-Pump RAM. Just like intel is using the quad pump on their FSB. Just speculating!

 

[dguy6789]

My guess is, they will stop ramping up memory clock speeds, and increase the bus width, like they have done on video cards.

Like now they have 64 bit pc memory, or 128 bit in dual channel. I think they will end up having quad channel memory or something similar. Quad channel wont be to practical tho, as it would require 4 memory modules to function. I think they will have each individual memory channel be 128 or 256 bits wide, so even with 1 or 2 active channels running, you can improve memory bandwith.

Also, imagine every single memory slot is a seperate memory channel. That way, depending on your system's needs, you could improve the memory bandwith by adding more memory, so you gain more memory bandwith and more total ram at the same time. In a server board, with like 8 or 10 ram slots, they would see HUGE memory bandwith performance increases.

 

[Lonyo]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
My guess is, they will stop ramping up memory clock speeds, and increase the bus width, like they have done on video cards.

Like now they have 64 bit pc memory, or 128 bit in dual channel. I think they will end up having quad channel memory or something similar. Quad channel wont be to practical tho, as it would require 4 memory modules to function. I think they will have each individual memory channel be 128 or 256 bits wide, so even with 1 or 2 active channels running, you can improve memory bandwith.

Also, imagine every single memory slot is a seperate memory channel. That way, depending on your system's needs, you could improve the memory bandwith by adding more memory, so you gain more memory bandwith and more total ram at the same time. In a server board, with like 8 or 10 ram slots, they would see HUGE memory bandwith performance increases.

But the PCB's would be horribly complicated, and consequently expensive, I believe.
For workstations it would be OK (cost isn't so much of an issue), but for low cost motherboards, it would mean either no more low cost, or low cost mobos wouldn't have such good mem bandwidth.

 

[cubby1223]

They'd probably just start developing 128bit or 256bit memory sticks. The only hangup would be the connection between the stick & the motherboard, you'd need probably around a 300 pin connection. But it's most definately feasible. There's definately room to go in the clock speed too, as GDDR3 says 1GHz clock on many cards, and considering the main standard in ddr ram is DDR400 at a 200MHz clock.

There's sooo much room for improvement right now that there's plenty of time for new technologies to be developed. Maybe one of these days they'll make static ram much smaller & then the system ram could be at 2+GHz clock speed (Cray used to make systems built with nothing but static ram).

 

[wisdomtooth]

Isn't there something out there called FDRAM or MRAM or somethingorother being developed out there...? I don't recall.

 

[Mark R]

FRAM and MRAM are replacements for flash - faster and with the added advantage of not wearing out.

There is a DDR3 specification, which will follow from DDR2. However, except for high-speed graphics cards, it is likely to be a long time before we see it.

The DDR2-DDR3 progression is for a faster memory bus, and it seems likely that this is going to be the primary direction things will go.

Simply making the memory bus wider, or adding more chanels, will simply require greater motherboard PCB complexity, more pins on key chips, and significartly higher prices - The PCBs for high-end graphics cards are already up to 12 layers, and need state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques like laser drilling, and blind or buried holes (vias), and the blank PCB such a card can be several times more expensive than a whole ATX motherboard PCB.

DDR4 or Quad-Pump RAM. Just like intel is using the quad pump on their FSB. Just speculating!

Well, DDR2 is already 'Quad-pumped' internally, although the bus is still DDR (and will stay that way for DDR3).

Conventional DDR is essentially 'double-pumped' RAM - internally there are 2 banks of SDRAM which are accessed alternately. So PC3200 consists of 2 banks of 200 MHz SDRAM (the bus runs at 200 MHz DDR).
DDR2 is arranged internally as 4 banks of SDRAM accessed in a round-robin fashion. DDR2-3200 consists of 4 banks of 100 MHZ SDRAM (the bus runs at 200 MHz DDR - the same as DDR1).
DDR3 is, you guessed it, 8 banks of SDRAM. DDR3-6400 is planned to be 8 banks of 100 MHz SDRAM (with a 400 MHz DDR bus). [It seems likely that when DDR3 actually launches, it will do so at a faster speed than this].