X-bit labs

Socket AM2 Platform: DDR2 SDRAM Support from AMD (page 13)

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 05/22/2006 | 09:00 PM ]

The performance of WinRAR archiving utility depends a lot on the memory subsystem performance. In this case we see that the application is very sensitive to growing memory bandwidth. However, even in this case DDR2-800 with aggressive 4-4-4 timings can show slightly better results than a Socket 939 platform with 2-2-2 latencies.

The same is true for gaming performance. Even the slowest DDR400 SDRAM proves more efficient than some types of DDR2 memory.

So, now we can answer the question we asked in the beginning of this review chapter: the transition to DDR2 SDRAM didn’t bring any significant performance improvement. Of course, the use of new memory standard can be quite handy for the future. The development of DDR SDRAM is over, both – JEDEC and memory makers – are now focusing on faster memory standards based on DDR2. Therefore, AMD has definitely made the right choice. The company waited until DDR2-800 SDRAM became widely available and performed the transition without losing any of the platform speed. By the way, a significant advantage of the DDR2 memory over the regular DDR SDRAM is the broad availability of high-capacity modules, which should be especially valuable when Windows Vista comes out.