Oh yeah, RAM. Sorry about that. But I admit it: When I’m shopping for memory, I pretty much turn off my brain. It’s not intentional, and it’s not that I think RAM isn’t important. It’s just that it’s the easiest kind of hardware to shrug off. Most of us, even when we’re in our most rabid enthusiast mode, roll our eyes at the arcane industry of RAM timings. Provided the DIMMs’ voltages and speeds are compatible with the motherboard, everything else usually seems academic. Oh, if I’m being super picky about components, I might pay a bit more attention, but in reality that’s rarely necessary. These days, you can take it for granted that basic DDR3 is going to be what you want.
It occurred to me last week, however, that we’re rapidly approaching another time when that might not be the case. As processors and other hardware get more powerful, it becomes more difficult — and important — for RAM to keep up. Over the last 20 years or so we’ve seen single data rate (SDR) memory give way to double data rate (DDR) memory, which transfers data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal. And over the last decade, we’ve slowly progressed from DDR to DDR2 (with an internal clock running at half DDR’s rate) to DDR3 (operating at half DDR2’s rate), constantly upping performance while reducing power usage along the way. But what about the next logical step in this particular cycle: DDR4?
Samsung announced a year ago that it haddeveloped the first 2GB DDR4 modules using a 30nm process technology, achieving with them transfer rates of 2.133Gbps at 1.2 volts. Three months later, Hynix came up with its own DDR4-2400 modules operating at the same voltage.
The website DDR4.org, which is (not surprisingly) devoted to information about the upcoming memory standard, is a bit light on substantive information but fleshes out a few of the details. Among them: Data transfer rates would start at 2,133MT/s (about where DDR3 is leaving off) and could eventually double to 4,266MT/s, and initial energy consumption is expected to be about 1.2 volts (though later chips might be able to use as little as 1.05 volts). The site goes on to say that “other sources have noted that the [power] consumption is 40 percent less for DDR4 than for an equivalent DDR3 chip.” Not bad. Another nugget of useful information on the site is the mention that DDR4 might make use of “pseudo open drain” technology, which was adapted from GDDR memory.