Just weeks away from the rumored public debut of AMD's new ATI Radeon
4000-series GPUs, AMD clues us in on a tantalizing tidbit about a key technology
found in its next generation graphics cards.
Today AMD
confirmed its plans to use GDDR5 memory in its next-gen cards. AMD says
forthcoming Radeons will be the first commercial products to use GDDR5 memory,
and that it has teamed up with major memory makers including Samsung, Hynix, and
Qimonda to make that happen. Using the new memory type will allow for five times
the bandwidth of GDDR3, the company boasts, and it will let AMD use narrower
memory interfaces without sacrificing performance. In the press release, AMD
graphics chief Rick Bergman suggests that may lead to smaller GPUs: "The days of
monolithic mega-chips are gone. Being first to market with [GDDR5] in our
next-generation architecture, AMD is able to deliver incredible performance
using more cost-effective GPUs." Also, AMD predicts that new error detection
systems in GDDR5 RAM will translate into better reliability for its
next-generation stream processors. AMD aims its existing dedicated stream
processors like the FireStream 9170 at scientific and engineering applications,
so such a trait should indeed be welcome.