Sunnyvale, Calif. - AMD announced the first commercial implementation of Graphics Double Data Rate, Version 5 (GDDR5) memory in its next generation of ATI Radeon graphics card products. The high-speed, high-bandwidth GDDR5 technology is expected to become the new memory standard in the industry, and be a key enabler of The Ultimate Visual Experience, unlocking new GPU capabilities. AMD is working with a number of memory providers, including Samsung, Hynix, and Qimonda, to bring GDDR5 to market.
Today's GPU performance is limited by the rate at which data can be moved on and off the graphics chip, which is limited by the memory interface width and die size. The higher data rates supported by GDDR5 -- up to 5x that of GDDR3 and 4x that of GDDR4 -- enable more bandwidth over a narrower memory interface, which can translate into superior performance delivered from smaller, more cost-effective chips.
AMD's senior engineers worked closely with industry standards body JEDEC in developing the new memory technology and defining the GDDR5 spec.
AMD expects that PC graphics will benefit from the increase in memory bandwidth for a variety of intensive applications. PC gamers will have the potential to play at high resolutions and image quality settings, with superb overall gaming performance. PC applications will have the potential to benefit from fast load times, with superior responsiveness and multitasking.
In addition to the potential for improved gaming and PC application performance, GDDR5 also holds a number of benefits for stream processing, where GPUs are applied to address complex, massively parallel calculations. Such calculations are prevalent in high-performance computing, financial, and academic segments among others.
AMD expects that the increased bandwidth of GDDR5 will greatly benefit certain classes of stream computations. New error detection mechanisms in GDDR5 can also help increase the accuracy of calculations by indentifying errors and re-issuing commands to get valid data.