14 DAY TRIAL // About one year ago the first DDR3 sticks were revealed at Computex. As time passed more and more integrators started to switch their memory lines from DDR2 to DDR3. At the moment we already have two INTEL platforms able to work with DDR3 chips. However the official green flag from JEDEC kept us in the dark about details such as official voltage, speeds and timings. Until now that is because they've finally announced that they have the official standard for DDR3.
Regarding the ratification of DDR3, Intel Director of Platform Memory Options and JEDEC board member Paul Fahey said: "The DDR3 standard will serve as the lynchpin for developing a new generation of memory solutions that address demands for both lower power and high performance. DDR3 will be an essential ingredient in future mobility platforms and those applications requiring the highest performance, such as video-on-demand, encoding and decoding, gaming and 3D visualization."
According to JEDEC the DDR3 chips will have a fixed voltage (1.5V instead of 1.8V for DDR2) and will have 512Mb to 8Gb density per data chip. As a result we will probably see 4GB sticks in 6 months or so. Unfortunately JEDEC didn't say a thing about the speed limit of DDR3. From what we know, DDR3-1333 will exist as a standard. However the same cannot be said about DDR3-1600.
"The DDR3 standard represents the culmination of countless hours of collaboration between memory device, system, component and module producers. This standard will permit emerging systems to achieve greater performance, storage and functionality, consistent with the needs of an increasingly information-intensive world community," claimed JEDEC JC-42.3 Chairman and AMD employee Joe Macri.
Currently DDR3 sticks can work inside Bearlake-based motherboards such as the P35 and X38 chipsets but Nvidia is also working on a board capable of working with DDR3 memory modules. Several memory manufacturers including Corsair, Geil, OCZ and Kingston have already announced their DDR3 memory lineups and the final products will enter the market in less than one month.
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