Future RAM

Okay. I have to talk a little bit about the new RAM formats that are coming out, because it's definitely something people are going to be interested in, even if they're not right now. This area is especially important because of increasing bus speeds (K7 running at 200 MHz?!) for home PC's. Thus, RAM technology necessarily had to advance to keep up with CPU's. These new RAM formats are on the horizon, and there's some talk going around about which one is going to take the throne as the new SDRAM standard. These are brief rundowns on what they are and what they do.

Double your fun

The first of the new RAM types is called DDR SDRAM, which stands for Double Data Rate SDRAM. The advantage of this one over our normal SDRAM (JEDEC standard) is that DDR SDRAM allows the RAM to activate a signal twice per clock cycle, whereas current SDRAM only does this once per clock cycle. This will obviously allow a speed increase. In theory, speed could double, but of course, we know that theory and actual performance are quite the different things when it comes to our computers. This format is already starting to get some support. Word is that one Socket 7 motherboard manufacturer already has chipset support for this format.

The next format goes by ESDRAM. It simply stands for Enhanced SDRAM. Now what ESDRAM does is kind of interesting. They include a little bit of SRAM on the module. Remember SRAM? It's used for cache. So what this does is put a little bit of cache on the RAM module. The theory is the same- use the cache to hold the most frequently accessed data by the RAM. This effectively speeds everything else up because the transmission time between the DRAM and SRAM on the memory module is very good, being on the same chip. There is one bad downside to ESDRAM, though. It is looking like it's going to be quite expensive. This is due, of course, to the incorporation of the SRAM. Initial reports show that there is already a Socket 7 chipset which will has ESDRAM support.

Mario RAM

The third RAM format (don't worry, there's only one more after this) is called DRDRAM. This stands for Direct Rambus DRAM. This is no longer a form of SDRAM, because it is not based anymore on the existing SDRAM architecture. This is basically because the existing architecture has potential only up to a certain point, and then it will be maxed out. Therefore, Rambus decided to design a new architecture that would have greater potential. First of all, they created a brand new packaging called RIMMs. It stands for Rambus Inline Memory Module. Great name, eh?