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uniqs
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47717768 (banned)
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[memory] DDR2 vs. DDR3

I have done some research, and i did not find any good solid explanation about the advantages of DRR3 other than lower price. So the question is there any performance improvements with DDR3?
aguen
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join:2003-07-16
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aguen

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Only if the motherboard supports DDR3.
47717768 (banned)
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Birmingham, AL

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said by aguen:

Only if the motherboard supports DDR3.

LOL. I know that.

Thane_Bitter
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DDR3 can transfer data twice as fast as DDR2, it draws less power thus belches out less heat, and as you pointed out earlier costs less.
47717768 (banned)
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Cool.

Dustyn
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DDR2 and DDR3 are improvements on the same technology and further increase the number of data transfers per clock cycle. DDR2 RAM provides 4 data transfers per cycle, while DDR3 increases the number to 8. Assuming a base clock speed of 100Mhz, DDR RAM will provide 1600 MB/s of Bandwidth, DDR2 provides 3200 MB/s, and DDR3 provides 6400 MB/s.
DDR4 is comming...

Krisnatharok
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What research did you do? Show your work, if you don't mind.

Crash Gordon
Zero Tolerance For Stupid
join:2004-06-08
Smyrna, GA

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Crash Gordon to Dustyn

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Don't forget that with the increased Bandwidth also comes increased Latency.

Edit: Example: 2x2GB DDR2-800 OCZ Reapers in the wifes machine 4-4-4-12
2x4GB DDR3-1600 G.Skill Ripjaws X in mine 9-9-9-24

Looks like a wash to me.
47717768 (banned)
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said by Krisnatharok:

What research did you do? Show your work, if you don't mind.

I just have done Google research

Crash Gordon
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Just to expand on my post a little.
As you can see from my example, double the bandwidth, but double the latency, so is it really faster?

In synthetic benchmarks like SiSoft SANDRA or AIDA (used to be Everest) DDR3 will most likely score higher, but in the real world you're unlikely to notice any difference on a similar spec'd machine. You also have to take into consideration the memory controller.

koitsu
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koitsu

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Another never-ending discussion topic that consists of never-ending madness. Old man koitsu here, being crotchety and annoyed as usual.

Crash Gordon See Profile is right on the money here.

The bottom line is that performance-wise there is no advantage to DDR3 over DDR2 aside offering higher bandwidth (please understand what bandwidth is before responding -- it is not the same thing as throughput).

Benchmarks aren't always a good thing to key off of, but I will present some hard evidence that there's really no difference between the two. Take the following reviews which were done on a motherboard that supports both DDR2 and DDR3 (separate slots for each type):

»www.tomshardware.com/rev ··· 8-3.html

And Anandtech (another site I don't tend to like much, but I digress) did a similar comparison between P35 chipset boards (meaning the MCH on the northbridge is the same despite the memory being DDR2 vs. DDR3):

»www.anandtech.com/show/2232/5
»www.anandtech.com/show/2232/6
»www.anandtech.com/show/2232/7

As you can see from the results, there's hardly any difference. The differences shown are so incredibly minor/minute that they can almost be attributed to some other kind of memory I/O transaction happening during the benchmark (welcome to the "benefits" of multitasking OSes and SMP).

"So then what's the real advantage (or difference) to DDR3?"

Simple: less power draw. DDR3 uses 1.5V exclusively, while DDR2 uses either 1.8V or 2.5V. Given that most DDR2 systems I've owned used 1.8V, simple math** tells us the average power savings between 1.5V vs. 1.8V is 18.2%.

When thinking about power usage, step back for a moment and think about the bigger picture. Don't think about desktops -- think about laptops and embedded systems.

You can read Wikipedia for yourself.

As for "lower cost" -- that's purely 100% circumstantial. When DDR3 came out, DDR2 for about a year was still cheaper than DDR3 (by a longshot). As more and more motherboards / systems came out which required DDR3, there was less and less need for DDR2. This is why today you see prices on DDR2 memory being significantly higher than DDR3. I believe this is where the whole "supply and demand" concept comes into play -- except the reality is that memory manufacturers are charging a premium for DDR2 simply because they can, not because "it's harder to make" or because it's "more rare" (it isn't -- it's still the commonplace for most servers made within the past 8 years (DDR2 was announced in 2003)).

** = Difference: 1.5 / 1.8 = 0.3. Averaged: (1.8 + 1.5) / 2 = 1.65. Averaged difference percentage: (0.3 / 1.65) * 100 = ~18.18%

markofmayhem
Why not now?
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markofmayhem

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DDR3 in 2007 had no-to-loss performance over DDR2. To make matters worse, some of the loss-in-performance units were nearly double the price of DDR2.

It isn't 2007 anymore...

The DDR3 1333 9-9-9-25 RAM used in the links above is no longer for sale, the closest I could find in a recent "comparison" was DDR3 1333 9-9-9-18 which is a noticeable "performance loss" to tighter timings and higher speed. "Double the latency" is not applicable in 2012. These two "head-to-head" resulted in less than 10% improvement in throughput read/write, latency, and i/o. Time improved DDR3, as R&D on DDR2 died. Natural progression, nothing special, but memory in 2012 is a performance increase to that in 2007; I'm not sure why there is a claim it isn't. DDR2 hit the brick wall, DDR3 carried the torch.

41.37 ns DDR3 latency is definitely an improvement over DDR2's best of 60.3 ns

Will a web browser notice it? Not likely.

In 2012, the year this question was asked, what is the difference between DDR2 and 3?

performance
price
power
heat
longevity (MTBF of units we use has risen in hours, prosumer and consumer warranties are longer on 'mainstream' units as well)

DDR4 will follow the same path. The early release products of DDR4 will be more expensive and near-to-less the performance of DDR3. As R&D continues on DDR4, it will surpass DDR3 in cost and performance; the model has thus far been predictable twice and little has changed to indicate it will not strike a third time. DDR4 does, however, have quite a few generational changes that most likely will accelerate the cost-to-performance benefit.
47717768 (banned)
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Looks like the only advantage is for the OEMs so they can make more money. Just like MS with the Win 8 OS the only advantage i see is for iPhones, iPads etc.., but when it comes to desktops i do not see much of improvements.

FizzyMyNizzy
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DDR4
»www.xbitlabs.com/news/me ··· map.html

Higher speed, use less voltage the same stuff for new stuff. =D

signmeuptoo94
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Another benefit is scalarity. With new RAM, more transistors and other parts are fit in the same square centimeter. Now, along with reducing the voltage needed to operate thanks to the smaller feature sizes, higher capacity RAM becomes available. We've got 8 GB RAM sticks that are commonly affordable/available for cheap. With DDR2 the largest commonly affordable/available for cheap was 2 GB sticks. With DDR1 it was 1 GB.

So with DDR4 RAM, will we see 24 GB RAM sticks? Or perhaps 64 GB? I don't know if the trend can continue at the scale it has up to now, but if it does, we will see software and OSs taking more advantage of large amounts of memory.

ccallana
Huh?
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ccallana

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Yes, but that is not a benefit of DDR2 over DDR3 - if they had wanted to, they could have continued advancing process technology on DDR2 for year and come up with 8, 16, 24G sticks of memory. Size has nothing to do with change....

Octavean
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I just came across this article:


IHS iSuppli: PCs no longer command biggest share of DRAM market


And started to wonder if a fundamental shift away from traditional computer specific development would reduce the price of newer RAM technology for the PC going forward?

Wishful thinking perhaps,….