While everybody's waiting for ATI's R600 cards (further delayed as usual), Samsung Electronics, the world leader in advanced memory technology and the leading producer of high-end graphics memory, introduces its improved data transfer speed technology of the world's fastest GDDR4 graphics memory.

The graphics card market seems to be the most dynamic of all. Several years ago, DDR RAM on chips made their debut, and now we already see the GDDR4 struggling to become a standard. "Our new GDDR4 memory will add even more zip in video applications, making gaming, computer-aided design and video editing a lot faster than ever before," said Mueez Deen, marketing director, graphics memory, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc. "This will enable ultra-smooth movements in animation, making games incredibly realistic, resulting in a truly immersive experience," Deen further added.

Samsung's newest GDDR4 modules are capable of data transfers at up to 4 GB/s, which is more than a 65% increase over current GDDR3 speeds, while previous versions of GDDR4 can only deal with 2.4 GB/s. Samsung managed to speed its GDDR4 memories up thanks to a recent jump to 80nm chip manufacturing process. Currently, Samsung is providing sample chips for its select customers, and the production units are slated to be 64MB chips. Samsung claims that the new 4 GB/s memory modules are clocked at 2 GHz by default, having a 32-bit data bus configuration. These memory modules are JEDEC-approved in order to attain the highest possible speed.

The improved memory speed could lead to an increased demand for the latest graphics cards from NVIDIA and ATI, making the transition to DX10-based products leaner. In addition, Samsung's analysts expect GDDR4 to significantly boost demand for the high-performance memory market segment over the next 12-18 months. The reduced manufacturing process will also lower heat output and cost for the new memory chips.