What's up with DDR2?

I've been seeing it advertised a lot recently and it's decent priced, but I don't know of anything using it. I'm getting a Dual-core Intel later this year and I don't want to buy a DDR1 board if DDR2 is going to quickly replace it. Any ideas?

If you want intel Dual Core, you'll have to wait, as apparently none of the boards available now have the support in it (chipset support).

that said, Intel's 925 series of chipsets and some 915 boards use DDR2. AMD does not have a DDR2 solution.

I use DDR2, what do you wanna know about it?

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=374000

Batboy, would you reccommend that when I get the Intel board and dual-core that I go for a DDR2 solution (if I have a choice) or stick with DDR1? Also, I'm guessing it'll run dual channel like DDR1, right? Lastly, do you think it's here to stay or going the way of RAMBUS (this one kind of worries me).

DDR2 is here to stay. DDR1 is starting to hit the end of the road in terms of speed increases. DDR2 will lower the latencies, which will increase performance and render DDR1 obsolete.

I'd go with DDR2 when dual core comes out. knowing Intel, they'll push for their chipsets to support DDR2 only.

Here by the end of next year...AMD will be DDR2 only...so odds are...by the end of 07...pretty much everything will be DDR2 only..

There was an article a few weeks ago, that talked about DDR3 and how it has the advantages of both DDR and DDR2 w/out the drawbacks. It also mentioned that AMD may skip right to DDR3 which is supposed to start mass production at the end of the year. I'll try and find the article and post it.

Found it - it's a forum discussion about the article w/ link to article
http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=23945

theMonster said:

Batboy, would you reccommend that when I get the Intel board and dual-core that I go for a DDR2 solution (if I have a choice) or stick with DDR1? Also, I'm guessing it'll run dual channel like DDR1, right? Lastly, do you think it's here to stay or going the way of RAMBUS (this one kind of worries me).

Click to expand...

I think DDR2 is here to stay awhile. The new Intel chipsets that will use the Intel dual core CPUs (i955 and i945 I think) will most likely only be DDR2 anyway. Yes, current DDR2 mobos run dual channel right now, so I'm assuming the new chipsets will be dual channel also.

right now you won't see the advantages of the DDR2 may be it worse than DDR.

bbq said:

right now you won't see the advantages of the DDR2 may be it worse than DDR.

Click to expand...

Care to back this up with facts? The Sandra memory bandwidth, Super Pi, and PCmark2004 scores I'm getting right now with DDR2 are the best I've ever gotten. I've been able to hit DDR2-800 (300 FSB using the 3:4 ratio) with DDR2. Can DDR do that? If you are running AMD, then don't worry about DDR2 for a while, but it's coming and the beginning of the end for DDR is here.

Arn't A64 systems with DDR stomping all over Intels with DDR2 in memory benchmarks? I'm not actually sure about this, but all the benchmakrs and records and stuff like that I see are always A64's with insane bandwidth.

I'm sure this is purley a result of the efficency of the A64's onboard memory controller though, and the fact that DDR memory is a very mature technology that has really been maximized, while DDR2 is still relativly young.

I'd imagine it's a mute point for anyone looking to get an Intel in a couple months. Intel didn't seem to keen to be using DDR on the 925 or 915 chipsets, and I would imagine they are going to do all they can to avoid it being used with the new chipsets at all.