DDR-SDRAM Pricier Than SDRAM

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Conventional SDRAM memory in comparison to the modern DDR SDRAM memory: The first deals with PC-133 memory while the DDR module is specified according to PC-266.

One thing must be said: DDR SDRAM memory is about twice as expensive as conventional SDRAM memory. When comparing the current prices of memory modules, we get the following results: While 128 MB of good-quality PC133 CL2 SDRAM memory cost about $50-60, you are charged about $120 for 128 MB of PC2100 CL2.5 DDR SDRAM. This 100% price premium is not reflected by the average 10% performance gain seen with DDR-SDRAM.

However, once you look at the cost of the complete system, the price difference between the two memory types (in case of 128 MB it's currently about $60) has a rather small impact on overall system costs. We also expect that DDR-SDRAM prices will drop in the near future.

Conclusion

The benchmark results show up to 10% of speed increase over comparable SDRAM solutions. The differences are even more noticeable during MPEG 4 encoding: The program Flask Mpeg encodes the test sequence using AMD-760 boards approximately 15% faster than the boards with KT133A chipset and SDRAM memory.

The ten percent of speed increase come at a price however. DDR modules currently cost about twice as much as normal SDRAM memory. We hope that the prices for the new memory chip will fall significantly, because more and more chipsets and systems with DDR support are becoming available on the market. The expected costs of only 30% over SDRAM have not been met yet.

The future of AMD's 760 chipset remains unclear. Other chipset makers like ALi and VIA are ready to supply the market with large production capacities of their (so far inferior looking) DDR-solutions. Unfortunately the quality of Taiwanese chipsets has not reached the standard of AMD chipsets. In one respect, AMD has been unbeatable: Memory performance.