Samsung Electronics Co. just announced that it is mass producing what it calls the "fastest graphics memory device in the world." The press release states that the new 900MHz GDDR3 memory is "already being used in graphics cards for PCs, workstations and notebooks."
The release quotes Nvidia's Bryn Young, Director of Memory Marketing and Sales, saying, "NVIDIA is now shipping the GeForce 7800 GTX 512 graphics card. Samsung's 900 MHz GDDR3 helped NVIDIA achieve the highest memory clock speed of any commercially available graphics processor." ATI's Joe Macri, Director of Engineering, is quoted saying, "Samsung's aggressive memory roadmap meshes quite well with our efforts to push the limits of speed to enable top-notch graphics for gamers and enthusiasts. We have worked closely with Samsung and have redesigned the memory controller in our recently announced architectures to take optimal advantage of its high-speed memory."
And thus, the never-ending race to speed up graphics memory continues. We made note of the extremely high memory clock speed (850MHz) in our review of the GeForce 7800 GTX 512, which uses the Samsung GDDR3 chips. Now that the chips are officially announced to be in "mass production," perhaps they will become more widely available and less expensive, perhaps relieving the cost of those $600+ graphics cards. It seems safe to assume that ATI's upcoming R580 high-end graphics card will use these memories as well.
The release quotes Nvidia's Bryn Young, Director of Memory Marketing and Sales, saying, "NVIDIA is now shipping the GeForce 7800 GTX 512 graphics card. Samsung's 900 MHz GDDR3 helped NVIDIA achieve the highest memory clock speed of any commercially available graphics processor." ATI's Joe Macri, Director of Engineering, is quoted saying, "Samsung's aggressive memory roadmap meshes quite well with our efforts to push the limits of speed to enable top-notch graphics for gamers and enthusiasts. We have worked closely with Samsung and have redesigned the memory controller in our recently announced architectures to take optimal advantage of its high-speed memory."
And thus, the never-ending race to speed up graphics memory continues. We made note of the extremely high memory clock speed (850MHz) in our review of the GeForce 7800 GTX 512, which uses the Samsung GDDR3 chips. Now that the chips are officially announced to be in "mass production," perhaps they will become more widely available and less expensive, perhaps relieving the cost of those $600+ graphics cards. It seems safe to assume that ATI's upcoming R580 high-end graphics card will use these memories as well.