Samsung's "Worlds fastest XDR DRAM"

[Northwood]

This (http://www.physorg.com/news2838.html) article announces that XDR DRAM will reach insane bandwidth levels of PC12800 (12.8GB/s)

also its said to be targeted at network servers, game platforms (consoles) and other electronic devices.

so what about us gamers? are we likely to see XDR and desktop processors go hand-in-hand?

would be nice to see intels "Presler" (successor to 1st generation dual-core on intels roadmap, expected Q1/Q2 06) working with this XDR memory.

any memory Xperts in here know the likelyhood of XDR coming to the mainstream? will we be running our gaming PC's on this XDR stuff? will it be another total flop like Rambus (RDRAM)?

all comments appreciated :toast:

[Aphex_Tom_9]

PC12800...Dayum!

[jjcom]

I remember something like XDR was talked about then it went away for awhile...no idea on if/when it'll come. DDR2 I believe is going to be for Presler and those. 2006 I believe DDR2 is still suposed to be used...no idea for 2007 but very well could be XDR.

jjcom

[STEvil]

RAMBUS is actually the ones making the chips.. trying to find the spot where I read that (forgot to submit it to news I guess).

EDIT

Here you go http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1188770,00.asp

[Northwood]

Rambus' argument is that DDR-2 will run out of steam around 2005, when the technology's 128-bit, 667-MHz DRAMs will yield 10.6 Gbytes/s. At that point, 32-bit XDR DRAM, which will be clocked at thee equivalent of 2.4 to 4.0 GHz, will step in. A 3.2-GHz XDR DRAM delivers 12.8 Gbytes/s, a perfect step up for the PC's main memory.

we just *might* see this in time for "Presler", and indeed looks like it will be heading for the PC mainstream.

and judging by the quoted speeds, a 4Ghz module could be capable of 16GB/s bandwidth, which is likely to be where this tech tops out, by 2007 i'd expect to see revised versions of this XDR (XDR-2?) with even lower latency and/or even faster clocks, and of course a new generation of processors.

The future's bright, the future's Rambus™ XDR :banana:

[saaya]

i still think r520 will have xdr... :D

[khellandros66]

Actually I think R520 might have both XDR and GDDR3 or4 just think X900XT PE with 512MB XDR and X800XT with 256MB GDDR3/4

~Bob

[metro.cl]

i still think r520 will have xdr... :D


2 votes for it

[blinky]

rambus is near my house :(

[STEvil]

2 votes for it

three.

[Waxman]

three.

Make it 4!!!! :D

[perry_78]

Make it 5 :D

Setup a Poll Southforrest!

[enzoR]

haha 6!

[macci]

will it be another total flop like Rambus (RDRAM)?
total flop? RAMBUS was the fastest thing out there before DC DDR stuff came out.
180FSB 4X TURBO mode w/ RAMBUS on P4T-E+TurboPLL...mmmm those were the days :D

[Northwood]

the reason i say RDRAM was a flop, is because it was never widely adopted like techs such as SDRAM, DDR, or DDR2, mainly due to the expence of the technology.

as far as i remember, to run RDRAM you need a P4 "Willamette" and an old motherboard. if anyone can provide evidence to the contrary then please do, cos i wouldn't mind some rambus on a prescott or something :)

[jjcom]

I believe it was the 845PE chipset that used RDRAM or DDR-RAM. I'm not sure if there are S478 RDRAM boards, but I think there might

jjcom

[macci]

i850 (400FSB) and i850E (533FSB) were the chipsets for RDRAM in the past. There were both S423 and S478 mobos w/ those chipsets: Abit TH7, ASUS P4T, Abit TH7-2 (which was one of the first if not the first OCing mobo that supported FIXED AGP/PCI clock), ASUS P4T-E and P4T533-C.
The s478 3.06GHz HyperThreading Northwood was the last chip I used w/ RDRAM platform (nearly 4.3GHz speeds). Back then it was the fastest thing available for pretty much anything. GraniteBay DualChannel DDR and i845PE mobos w/ single channel DDR500 2-2-2-5 speeds came close but couldn't beat it :D

Running RDRAM in 4X mode is clock to clock (FSB) pretty much equal to i875 running 1:1 mode w/ fastest settings and 2-2-2-5 timings. Too bad the RDRAM chips and rambus clockgens (600MHz parts) couldn't handle much over 180FSB (720MHz RDRAM) speeds. I remember seeing Sandra buffered of over 4800MB/s at ~185FSB w/ RDRAM.

[enzoR]

ahhh those were the days!

[saaya]

oh oh, now you got macci started :D

i wonder why rambus was that expensive back then... bad yields? expensive pcb? large ics?

[GinTonic]

12.8gb/s?! :slobber: :slobber:

What are they waiting for??

Hehehe :D

[Ref]

Timings ?

[kemist]

Rdram would have been good for northwood or prescott, basically any proc with P4 style architecture (deeply pipelined). But rdram was pushed out first with the P3 which was almost as fast with Sdram and you paid a huge premium for Rdram and Rdram motherboards. People got pissed at that and there was a huge backlash against rambus. Finally by the time willamette and northwood came out DDR was cheap and dual channel relatively easy to do so DDR won out, though i believe Rdram was starting to come down in price. Also Rdram was able to ramp higher than 1066, but there was no demand anymore. Correct me if im wrong with any of that, but its been about 5 years since it all happened. Basically most of the reason Rdram flopped was that intel pushed it too soon with a proc that didnt need it.

[enzoR]

RD ram was great technology. absoultely ammazing engineering. it was just too complicated for the production process in those days which made it expensive.

[jinu117]

It wasn't just production cost, the licensess involved huge ransom for someone to make it too. Instead of trying to drive down the cost, everyone involved tried to drive cost up based on Intel is all mighty idea. Thus they failed when many Taiwanese manufacturer's abandoned RDRAM and striked against Intel. Kind of funny how it coincide with down of Comdex and rise of world scale computershows in Taiwan.

[madgamer]

Cell processors are using this as their on board ram for each of its APUs (called SPEs in that article, I guess they changed the name from patent specs). linkage (http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?ArticleID=RWT021005084318&p=2)

[perkam]

12.8gb/s?!

Sure, as long as I dont get XDR 12.8Gb/s with cas 10 latency on my doorstep anytime soon, I'll be fine lol

Perkam

[Skip]

isn't the memory bandwidth of the current generation of cards much higher than xdr's bandwidth? i had thought it was like 32GB/s.

then again, the bus is twice as wide as current dual channel on motherboards.

[MikeMurphy]

If my crummy 128bit memory bus on my video card can pump out "16GB/s", why should I be excited about this?

Why cant they dump that memory onto the mobos??

[kemist]

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050125_170734.html

Desktops can support 128-bit setups (dual channel DDR/XDR). That gives you 16GHz (128GB/s) compared to the 3.2GB/s of DDR400. Video cards, with 256-bit memory controllers, give you 32GHz (256GB/s) compared to 35.2GB/s of the GeForce 6800 Ultra.