Samsung began shipping 512 Mb GDDR3

[lopri]

I belive this hasn't been posted yet.

“With our new 512 megabit GDDR3 memory, we can provide sharply improved performance, reduced power consumption and more efficient space utilization for 512MB graphics cards,” said Mueez Deen, Director of Marketing, Graphics Memory, Samsung Semiconductor.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20041210082816.html

I remember that many were skeptical about 128 Mb-to-256 Mb transition, but it seems like this time around people (including myself) tend to look forward to 512 Mb version of cards. It'll be interesting to see which company would deploy this expensive memory and how much will the actual boards will go for.

lop

 

[DjordySeelmann]

Oh yeah, we really need more GPU memory; I'm hoping that 256 MB will become the mainstream memory size and 512 MB high-end; it will really improve the visual quality of most game engines. Not only 'regular' textures take up that much memory, also relatively new techniques like PRT take up a lot of space.

However, how much would a card with 512 Mb GDDR3 memory cost?

 

[Xenus]

I'm pretty sure its megabit not mega byte so divide by eight and you get 64MB per chip thus eight chips on the pcb for 512MBs of ram.

 

[{Sniping}Waste]

We need more bandwith more then more memory! We need 512bit bus or faster GDDR3.

 

[DukenukemX]

I can't wait for X600 video cards with 512 megs of memory. It'll be twice as fast as a Radeon 9600 XT 256 megs.

Why would anyone be exited over more memory on a video card? I still see people who rate video card performance based on how much memory it has. Which is a huge misconception.

I don't see game developers not using texture compression and with 3Dc I'm sure ATI is going to push hard for it to be used.

 

[Razor1]

I can't wait for X600 video cards with 512 megs of memory. It'll be twice as fast as a Radeon 9600 XT 256 megs.

Why would anyone be exited over more memory on a video card? I still see people who rate video card performance based on how much memory it has. Which is a huge misconception.

I don't see game developers not using texture compression and with 3Dc I'm sure ATI is going to push hard for it to be used.

Memory is very neccessary, all new games right now utilize the full 256 mb of vram (this along with DXT or 3Dc). More memory bigger textures, bigger textures better looking games. Or more textures which ever is prefered, also more polygons.

 

[ZoinKs!]

Why would anyone be exited over more memory on a video card?

Large memory tends to help improve image quality while minimizing the hit on framerate. Load up the game of your choice and compare how it looks with max quality vs min quality textures.

Of course, the rest of the system needs performance to make use of it. I've heard of a 256 meg pci radeon 9250.


EDIT: I had to see for myself if such cards exist... unfortunately they do. Here's one example.

 

[MasterBaiter]

It also makes me feel better about my small penis.

 

[trinibwoy]

It also makes me feel better about my small penis.

Sadly I have to wait for 1GB cards

 

[MPI]

I'm pretty sure its megabit not mega byte so divide by eight and you get 64MB per chip thus eight chips on the pcb for 512MBs of ram.

Of course, I don't think anybody missed that. No single memory chip package has 256-bit wide data output anyway(probably 32-bit nowdays), so you need at least 8 chips to cover the data-out granularity for a 256-bit bus.

 

[phenix]

PowerColor Radeon 9200/9250, 256MB DDR

 

[karlotta]

PowerColor Radeon 9200/9250, 256MB DDR

with a 64bit bus? or even a 128?, that card does not have a 256bit.

 

[RussSchultz]

PowerColor Radeon 9200/9250, 256MB DDR

with a 64bit bus? or even a 128?, that card does not have a 256bit.[/quote]
Perhaps there are chips on the other side of the PCB?

 

[KimB]

with a 64bit bus? or even a 128?, that card does not have a 256bit.

Perhaps there are chips on the other side of the PCB?

Doesn't matter. It's an R200-based product, and a value product no less. It's just not going to have greater than a 128-bit bus.

 

[phenix]

with a 64bit bus? or even a 128?, that card does not have a 256bit.

It has 128bit wide interface and there should be 4 more chips on the other side of the card.

EDIT: Deleted repeated picture

 

[GwymWeepa]

It also makes me feel better about my small penis.

Sadly I have to wait for 1GB cards

*crosses fingers for 1TB cards*

 

[MasterBaiter]

I guess I forgot to mention the fact that I'm small.... compared to an elephant.


Okay, stop that! It's silly! Back on-topic here...

I don't think there's anything wrong with offering 512 meg cards provided there are uses for it. Bandwidth is important, but I've heard too many people squeal about the quality of textures in recent games like Doom3 and HL2 that it couldn't hurt to have the additional texture storage (provided the artists & programmers actually leveraged the power of these video cards). :|

 

[Buntar]

We need more bandwith more then more memory! We need 512bit bus or faster GDDR3.

Isn't the GDDR4 almost out? And 512bit bus is still way too expensive...