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[Grav!ty Profile]

The fastest RAM currently available is DDR-400. DDR2 is faster than DDR3 but that doesn't mean one has to stick with outdated technology though. I think the next PC RAM will jump to DDR5 and give DDR4 a miss. GDDR5 RAM is already being used in some recent ATi GPU's and GPU's tend to be the guinea pigs of RAM.

The speed of the RAM as measured by it's "memory operations per second" is but a small consideration, particularly in multi-core and multi-threaded systems where the amount of data simultaneously accessible by multi-cores via the greater bandwidth available to DDR3 plays a more important role. The additional interleaving capability of DDR3 RAM is also a consideration. Anyone running a multi-core system will benefit by using DDR3.

Prices of DDR2 versus DDR3 are still ludicrous with DDR3 still costing up to 5 times more than DDR2. I paid around $ 700 for my Corsair TWIN3X2048-1333C9DHX kit and it now goes for around US$ 100 By the way I'm not that early a hardware adopter that my RAM was the first DDR3 release. Anyway the rumors around DDR3's "bugs" were never substantiated and had more to do with the slower timings of DDR3.

[JabbaPapa Profile]

Anyway the rumors around DDR3's "bugs" were never substantiated and had more to do with the slower timings of DDR3.

I've never listened to such rumours about DDR3 "bugs" -- and thanx for the info

[JabbaPapa Profile]

I think the next PC RAM will jump to DDR5 and give DDR4 a miss. GDDR5 RAM is already being used in some recent ATi GPU's and GPU's tend to be the guinea pigs of RAM.

I think that GDDR *used* to be the guinea pigs of RAM, but as I understand things the two have diverged somewhat

It was announced in 2008 that the successor to DDR will be DDR4, scheduled for release in ~2011. Speeds of DDR4 will start at 1,6 Ghz up to a theoretical maximum 3,2 Ghz. Theoretical maximum for DDR3 is about 2,2 Ghz (I *think*), with the current maximum speed for commercially available DDR3 @ 2 Ghz.

AMD are btw planning on releasing quad-channel DDR3 hardware in 2010, so it will be interesting to see what Intel's next move will be