DDR4 Will Not Touch the PC Market in 2013

The first DDR4 modules have been in testing for quite some time now and even the first memory controller’s designs are ready for mass production, but DRAM makers are now yet willing make the switch.

DDR3 modules are dirt cheap right now and this is really not desirable not for the DRAM makers nor for the module manufacturers, but the industry is simply not ready for DDR4 and won’t be for the next 12 months.

In a very interesting and informative meeting we had with Kingston’s European Product Development Manager, Mr. Stephane Rizzetto broke the news to us.

DDR4 will not land on the PC market during the next year.

Neither Intel nor AMD will have any kind of platform for the new memory type, no matter what market segment is in question.

Some were hoping that the expensive LGA2011 platform from Intel will receive an upgrade or an annoyingly slightly different LGA2012 will bring the much awaited upgrade, but this will not happen.

Microsoft’s Windows Server 2012 now brings support for 4TB of RAM memory for a single server and DDR3 is now cheap enough to be able to fill the market’s virtualization needs.

AMD and Intel are taking different routes to improve performance of their platforms.

Intel is likely to use Crystalwell cache-like concept and AMD is working hard to make the iGPU and CPU collaborate better with simultaneous memory access for the two.

When it is finally introduced, DDR4 will be less interesting for desktop PC enthusiasts as it will likely not offer any significant improvement over DDR3 2133 MHz and will also be considerably more expensive.

What DDR4 will actually bring is high module density, with modules starting at the 8 GB mark, and 16 GB ones being available at launch.