Rambus Promises Graphics Memory Speed Increases

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Memory developer Rambus, creators of the ill-fated RDRAM for the Intel desktop platform, are touting their upcoming XDR graphics memory as being five times faster than current graphics memory products such as GDDR3. The company claims that its first generation XDR, chosen for use in Sony's Playstation 3, will operate at speeds upwards of 4.8GHz while its newly announced successor, XDR2, will push speeds of 8GHz.

While the primary funcution of Rambus's new technology will be gaming, the company believes that it also has other practical uses, such as high speed network routing and switching. XDR2 is already available for licensing and products utilizing it are expected to emerge sometime in the year 2007.

News source: PC Pro

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#1 Tantawi on 08 Jul 2005 - 14:24

wow!

(1 reply) #2 kl33per on 08 Jul 2005 - 14:40

They said RDRAM was fast to.

#2.1 Radium on 09 Jul 2005 - 12:27

It was...

(1 reply) #3 LTD on 08 Jul 2005 - 14:53

Big words from RAMBUS. They're basically DEAD in the mainboard RAM deparment. We've seen this before.

#3.1 bucko on 08 Jul 2005 - 21:58

ditto

(2 replies) #4 Ficman on 08 Jul 2005 - 15:31

I don't think many would argue that RAMBUS had some great stuff in the past, it's the cost of it that has been the issue... Technolgy is great, but at what cost is the problem...

My 2 cents...

#4.1 CPUWiZ on 08 Jul 2005 - 16:09

No they didn't have great stuff in the past.. It was 2x bandwidth, 2.5 times the latency.. and yeah it was OVER-priced! sure the faster memory helped hide the latency.. a little! Of course.. they shouldn't have even released it when they did. They 'Strong-armed iNTeL into not jumping on the DDR bus (lol)!! and shot themselves in the foot.. Maybe it would have been more relavent In our new 64-bit processors, PCI-E and 1Ghz FSB computers then it was on the P-III!!! Too bad! so sad.. now they can rot for suing VIA for releasing a DDR chipset for the P4.. I love Irony!

#4.2 bucko on 08 Jul 2005 - 21:59

They had to pay a license fee for every chip, that is what I heard anyway, the fee was to high.

#5 georgi55 on 08 Jul 2005 - 15:58

I hate these guys the way they fixed price of their RAM. Burn in hell now, I hope they go out of business.

#6 soothsayer on 08 Jul 2005 - 16:27

I'm sure that in time there will be an open specification that is as fast or faster than their proprietary stuff.

#7 Cyranthus on 08 Jul 2005 - 17:05

maybe if they lowered their prices they just might "get it"

but ide laugh if this format fails as well...

#8 eilegz on 08 Jul 2005 - 18:15

well now that would explain and a factor that the new ps3 will be a overpriced piece of hardware LOL

(2 replies) #9 Beastage on 08 Jul 2005 - 18:45

You guys do understand they make the memory for PS3? and people calling them dead , you know how many PS3 gonna be sold? you know how much money RAMBUS will make?

It might just be the next high end video ram for all we know , so stop crying about prices and go buy another dual 7800 GTX

#9.1 Cyranthus on 08 Jul 2005 - 19:03

that is a good point than. i didnt know they were doing the memory for the ps3, but i remember reading an article last week with Sony's president pretty much saying that the ps3 is going to be damn expensive... dunno if this has anything to do with it or not.

#9.2 Beastage on 10 Jul 2005 - 09:25

Prolly does , XDR looks to be costly , but with Sony/Toshiba/IBM help it should be easier to produce than otherwise ... at least I think that

(4 replies) #10 mr_demilord on 08 Jul 2005 - 19:24

I thought rambus was bankrupt

#10.1 theyarecomingforyou on 08 Jul 2005 - 20:00

Nope... just wishful thinking.

#10.2 Jugalator on 08 Jul 2005 - 23:46

Why don't you want competition?

#10.3 mr_demilord on 09 Jul 2005 - 08:06

I don't want, I just thought they were

#10.4 samwisefoxburr on 10 Jul 2005 - 16:17

QUOTE

Heh, I think Rambus was the one that didn't want competition.

#11 LTD on 08 Jul 2005 - 23:54

lol, people love to hate Rambus.

(1 reply) #12 ArtOf_War on 09 Jul 2005 - 00:15

This company is very talented... however it is also very cocky and that's why nobody likes their products

#12.1 excalpius on 09 Jul 2005 - 17:35

Cocky is one thing...litigating themselves into an SCO level Limbo is another. People really HATE them for how they approached the entire marketplace...and then never really delivered anything except litigation to all of us end users.

#13 neocitron on 09 Jul 2005 - 01:18

that was the past.. this is now.. and GDDR3 is damn slow compared to XDR... no questions asked.. but XDR is probably gonna cost alot more

#14 Shining Arcanine on 09 Jul 2005 - 02:06

According to my calculations, their XDR2 memory running at 8GHz should provide a theoretical 256GBps of memory bandwidth on a 256bit bus:

1000MHz * 8 bits per clock * 256 bit bus / 8 the number of bits in a byte = 256,000MBps

If the royalties are low and the latencies are acceptable, this could be a very promising memory technology, one that I'd like to see in future graphics cards.

(2 replies) #15 dhitb on 09 Jul 2005 - 03:03

Oh goodie, just when $600 high-end video cards seemed just shy of sanity, they're going to extend the price range to double that because Rambus wants a piece of it.

#15.1 Cephas on 11 Jul 2005 - 15:27

You obviously don't know very much about the graphics market. Check out historic launch prices of high end cards... You'll be surprised by how little they've changed.

#15.2 dhitb on 12 Jul 2005 - 01:16

I'm not the ignorant one here. How else could prices jump from $300 to $600 for the highend? They simply extend the price range so that they do not have to lower prices as quickly with the older generation.

(1 reply) #16 Sub on 09 Jul 2005 - 12:24

Once bitten, twice shy.

#16.1 excalpius on 09 Jul 2005 - 17:37

precisely

(6 replies) #17 open_coder on 09 Jul 2005 - 16:46

See, I don't believe that that Rambus had a chance in the RDRAM dept. They made it proprietary and liscenced the ability to make it. That means that most companies couldn't even innovate it very much. I think that global standards are the way to go. I just hope that those working on MRAM won't follow this same path. It would be a travesty to see such a good invention become proprietary.

--Alex

#17.1 Shining Arcanine on 09 Jul 2005 - 18:19

Are you a communist? Seriously, the inventor of any invention deserves to patent it and extract royalties. The problem with Rambus was that they were so greedy they demanded insane royalties. If the royalties had been reasonable (say $5 a piece of RAM), they wouldn't have mattered.

#17.2 Radium on 10 Jul 2005 - 01:07

He's probably a socialist and not a communist.
I'm sick of people calling others "communist!!!!!!!!".

Some people (a significant amount) even called John Kerry a communist, but Kerry is 100 times the capitalist of the most hardcore capitalist in Europe.

#17.3 Shining Arcanine on 10 Jul 2005 - 16:06

Is there really much of a difference? They both are liberal, they both support communism and they both believe everyone should be entitled to everything, regardless of property rights.

John Kerry isn't a communist through. He is a liberal. Finding a difference the two is difficult however.

#17.4 samwisefoxburr on 10 Jul 2005 - 16:33

Is there really much of a difference? They both are conservative, they both support fascism and they both believe everyone should not be entitled to anything, regardless of privacy rights.

George W. Bush isn't a fascist through. He is a conservative. Finding a difference the two is difficult however.

#17.5 panacea on 11 Jul 2005 - 01:40

LOL

#17.6 Zerbs on 11 Jul 2005 - 15:46

Wasn't there an article somewhere above about graphics memory???

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