GDDR4 ships for testing

[rwolf]

http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/26/samsung_gddr4/index.html

The fourth generation of graphics double data rate (GDDR) memory is able to process gaming and video images at a rate of 10 GByte per second, which is roughly 725 percent more than what current GDDR3 technology provides. Overall, Samsung said that GDDR4 could deliver a speed increase of 56 percent when compared to GDDR3.

Samsung said it plans to introduce samples of 2.8 Gbit per second GDDR4 by the end of this year with mass production to follow by the second quarter of 2006.

Looks like ATI picked a good time to come out with an advanced new memory controller.

 

[Jawed]

Blimey, what could R580 do with 75GB/s?

Jawed

 

[rwolf]

Looks like we won't see it until the second quarter.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Blimey, what could R580 do with 75GB/s?

Jawed

I don't think it could do much more than R520...unless they get the core clock speed up even higher.

 

[Xenus]

I still want XDR it has 100GB/s on a 256-bit bus at 3.2Ghz and XDR2 will give you 250GB/s at 8Ghz and has new features like microthreading.

 

[wireframe]

Looks like ATI picked a good time to come out with an advanced new memory controller.

Why do you say that? The memory controller has to be "better" when it has little to work with, like stagnating memory speeds of late. With a huge boost in raw memory bandwidth you can be more lax about "advanced" memory controllers.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

Specifically, the ring bus:

http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/r520/index.php?p=05

by placing the memory bus around the edges of the chip wire density around the controller is decreased, which can result in higher clock speeds.

By reducing the wire density of the memory bus, you run a much lower risk of the memory bus being your limiting factor for your chip clock speeds. ATI's architecture should have a much better chance of scaling to higher clock speeds so that the GPU can take advantage of higher clocked memory.

 

[egore]

That memory bus is being put to good use as some crazy over-clockers managed to get a r520 to over 1GHz.The link is on ATIs front page.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

That memory bus is being put to good use as some crazy over-clockers managed to get a r520 to over 1GHz.The link is on ATIs front page.

And even though it's PR speak, this is the relevant and timely quote:

It's impressive to see the Radeon X1800 XT architecture achieve 1 GHz core speed and approach 2 GHz memory speed, which far exceeds the specifications of the memory devices," said Stan Ossias, Sr. Product Manager, Desktop Products, ATI Technologies Inc. "Once faster GDDR-4 memory arrives next year, users can expect to see the hidden potential of ATI's innovative new memory controller design complement our powerful shader engines with massive additional memory clock scalability."

 

[Carl B]

Well, it's damn fine memory - that's for sure! I'd be interested also inseeing whether or not XDR or XDR2 break into the graphics market at some point, but for something you know you're going to be seeing used in the next year, this is highly impressive.

 

[MasterBaiter]

I really think we'll see 512 meg cards come into their own when these memories become available. There will probably games out by then that want 512megs, plus the GPU cores will probably be pushing into the 800Mhz speeds by then as well (but that could be crazy talk too)...

 

[AlNom]

Isn't there already bandwidth limited scenarios with HDR?

 

[Skrying]

I really think we'll see 512 meg cards come into their own when these memories become available. There will probably games out by then that want 512megs, plus the GPU cores will probably be pushing into the 800Mhz speeds by then as well (but that could be crazy talk too)...

Some games already get help with 512MB, FEAR and COD2 come to mind.

 

[MasterBaiter]

Those games get a fps nudge with a 512 meg card. I'm more or less talking about games based off of next gen engines out in 2006 that will most likely get more than just a nudge.

 

[Xenus]

mmm. Thinks of a 90nm GTX with 24ROPs, higher clockspeed, and XDR2. What a dream.