Hi all; TomsHardware reports on DDR SDRAM. Says he knows when the rollout date is, but can't say:
RAM Wars
The tension between Rambus and effectively the rest of the computer world has been palpable here at the MPF. Clearly the momentum has swung strongly in favor of DDR SDRAM with the only unambiguous supporter left for RDRAM in the PC space being Rambus itself. In a panel discussion of next- generation computer memory, only Rambus's Avo Kanadjian defended the beleaguered company's protocol- based technology.
From the audience, Intel's Bob Jackson did make a tepid defense of RDRAM, but his arguments about the "hot spots" created in mobiles by SDRAM fell flat as Desi Rhoden countered effectively. Mr. Rhoden stated that mobile designs have thus far failed to implement SDRAM's power saving features. Continuing, Mr. Rhoden mentioned Acer Lab's recent studies indicating that DDR SDRAM brought an impressive 30% power savings over SDRAM.
In defending his company's technology, Mr. Kanadjian stressed the granularity advantage of RDRAM. It will be possible to add the packet based memory with a 32MB chunk at a time when similar technology will require DDR SDRAM to be added in a quantum of 128MB. However, even the moderatory, Peter Glaskowsky, expressed skepticism that this was much of an advantage when Windows is already demanding much more than 32 MB of memory.
DDR SDRAM was on display at many places at the MPF earlier this week. Hyundai showed its DDR memory in a working VIA motherboard.
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Here is a close up of DDR SDRAM in another operating VIA motherboard.
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The burgundy colored DDR SDRAM DIMMs in this operating AMD760 based Gigabyte motherboard are from Micron.
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We also took a few pictures of DDR SDRAM based motherboards that were on display and running demos. The motherboard below is from Iwill and it is based on the ALiMAGiK 1 chipset. Notice that it still has a few patches
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Here is a VIA DDR SDRAM motherboard.
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The Gigabyte GA-7DX motherboard based on the AMD760 was not only running the 3DMark demo, but looked very close to being production ready. We were told that it might in fact be the first DDR SDRAM motherboard available.
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We know when the AMD760 is scheduled to be rolled out, but we cannot reveal the exact date yet. We can say that if all goes according to plan, you should be able to put together an Athlon based DDR SDRAM system in time for Christmas. In fact, you should be able to purchase an OEM system by that time.
As far as availability is concerned, it is difficult to say which chipset between AMD's and ALi's will hit the market first. However, from the readiness of the motherboards that we saw here at MPF, it appears that the AMD760 will arrive first. VIA's DDR SDRAM chipset will not be ready until Q1 2001 we were told. SiS, which was not at MPF, is also planning a DDR SDRAM chipset which should arrive in the first quarter of next year.
DDR SDRAM chipsets for the Intel PIII from both ALi and VIA should appear shortly after their Athlon counterparts. ALi demonstrated an operational PIII DDR SDRAM based motherboard, but, unfortunately, we do not have photos of it.
"TeamDDR," a collaborative effort organized by AMI and JEDEC, hosted most of these demos. TeamDDR consists of ALi, AMD, ATI, FCI, Hyundai, Infineon, InterWorks, Micron, NVIDIA, Samsung, SiliconTech and VIA.
Infineon said they will soon be is sending us 300MHz (2x150) DDR-SDRAM to evaluate. Since no FSB runs at 150MHz, this memory will be good for overclocking CPUs.
The Mountain View, California based Rambus was the only company that we saw that had RDRAM in exhibit (Intel apparently did not have a booth). The intellectual property company focused mostly on embedded RDRAM applications such as the memory's design win in the Sony PlayStation2.
tomshardware.com
-- Carl |
