SAMSUNG GDDR4 Memory Selected by AMD for the Radeon HD 2000 Series

[mascaras]

Samsung GDDR4 80nm high-speed memory chips for both HD2900XT 1GB and HD2600XT 256mb:

SAMSUNG GDDR4 Memory Selected by AMD for the Radeon HD 2000 Series

Samsung Electronics announced today that its 80nm GDDR4 high-speed graphics memory chip is being used in both the 1GB ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT and the 256MB ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics processing cards. The 1GB card has the widest bus in the industry designed for full-performance, high dynamic range (HDR) rendering in PCs.

We chose Samsung’s GDDR4 memory for our 1GB ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT and ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics cards because its design complements our strategy in offering leading-edge technology to a broader enthusiast gaming market

said Vijay Sharma, Director, Product Marketing, AMD Graphics Products Group. Samsung’s GDDR4 memory devices are now in mass production and will appear widely as soon as the new ATI graphics cards hit the market.



Source: Samsung

[FghtinIrshNvrDi]

if I cut the modules off of my current sticks of DDR ram with a dremel and solder/glue these on, how would my PC fair?

Ryan

[XS2K]

if I cut the modules off of my current sticks of DDR ram with a dremel and solder/glue these on, how would my PC fair?

Ryan

Very weak chances for it to run IMHO....
Anyway it's very hard to cut them off with a dremel and not ruin them or to solder those chips with a normal solder-gun,it's a very precise job....

[Ubermann]

I dont think the question was if it was possible but how would the bandwidth and latency be ?

[MarlboroMan]

0.6 ns???

[DataNusse]

0.6 ns???

Seems so

[Eastcoasthandle]

I posted a little about it here

However, I believe these IC's are not available yet because if you recall Denny's/guess2098 post(s) you will clearly see that current HD 2900 XT 1024 video cards are using:
BC09 .9ns @ 1.1 GHz = 2.2 Gbps
NOT
BC06 .6ns @ 1.6 GHz = 3.2Gbps
source

[Sanborn]

So there hasnt been any tests on these right ?

[Eastcoasthandle]

So there hasnt been any tests on these right ?

As far as I know, no. The news of the new ICs were just released on the 28th. It's hard to tell when they will be found on the HD 2900xt.

[Sanborn]

Would be funny if all the 2900xt(x?) needed to kick the GTX to the curb was better ram.

[ColonelCain]

Would be funny if all the 2900xt(x?) needed to kick the GTX to the curb was better ram.

Very possible. That, and higher core clocks.

[Eastcoasthandle]

Would be funny if all the 2900xt(x?) needed to kick the GTX to the curb was better ram.

I'll reserve that opinion until it's been benchmarked. GDDR4 at .6ns at 1.6GHz is nothing to sneeze at. The current hd 2900xt 1024 appears to use the same ICs as the X1950xtx which are .9ns @ 1.1GHz (source).
Although I believe there would be some similarity in performance between the:
x1900xtx vs x1950xtx
and
HD 2900XT 512 vs HD 2900XT 1024
had they both used 512megs of ram it goes without saying that at .6ns vs .9ns you should see a nice boost in performance. However, the real question is if the .6ns @ 1.6GHz make much of a difference over .9ns @ 1.1GHz in games? Only time will tell . But I wouldn't worry about a thing once you have the video card at a nice OC though.

[Sanborn]

Is there a time frame for when this bad boy is coming out ?

Hopefully by the end of August.

[ColonelCain]

They already are out: Sapphire X2900XT 1GB GDDR-4

[Eastcoasthandle]

Is there a time frame for when this bad boy is coming out ?

Hopefully by the end of August.

Hard to say right now. eWiz and Newegg are currently selling them (there are others). To be honest, I would wait until current stocks run out at those places. However, that's not really a good method. ATI would have to make some sort of announcement in order to let consumers know that the better ICs on the HD2900XT (and other card) are available to purchase. Anything short of that will be a pure guess.

They already are out: Sapphire X2900XT 1GB GDDR-4

Honestly there is no way to tell if that card uses BC09 or BC06.

[Chewbenator]

Eh, why is the Sapphire one $100 more than the cheapest one? Whoops dummy me,

[ColonelCain]

It is the 1GB GDDR-4 version.
@Eastcoasthandle, I was responding to Sanborn.

[Sanborn]

So whats going on with the XTX ? It just a no-show this time around ?

[BenchZowner]

Would be funny if all the 2900xt(x?) needed to kick the GTX to the curb was better ram.

It won't, and with the current HD 2900XT it'll never be.
Memory performance is not the culprit at all.

[erwinz]

very nice.. I hope it can help DAAMIT.. where is the 2600xt crads.. hehehe

[[XC] hipno650]

It won't, and with the current HD 2900XT it'll never be.
Memory performance is not the culprit at all.

ya with a 512bit bus bandwidth does not seem to be the problem. seems to be the number of rops. same problem on the 2600xt 8600 has 8 while 2600 has 4 come on ati

[ColonelCain]

The problem lies in the architecture itself. 2 main reasons actually.
1) The way that they implemented AA.
2) Not having enough ROP's

[zerazax]

Unless the rumored 65nm refresh has architecture changes, I can only see the same problems occuring, only higher clocks to offset it