IDF Fall 2007 – DDR3 Memory Modules All Around

Memory Companies Market DDR3 To Developers

With Intel showing off demo systems with X38 and P35 Express chipsets, all the buzz about system memory was around DDR3 memory modules. With no less than 14 brands of DDR3 memory being shown off on the show floor, it’s clear that DDR3 has been picked up by all the major players and is ready for mainstream use.

Not every company can be at IDF, but we stopped by and talked to those companies that were on the show floor.

Crucial Memory:

Crucial is the newest player in the DDR3 market as they just announced their first Crucial Ballistix DDR3 (Double Data Rate 3) memory module at 1600MHz (PC3-12800) here at IDF this week. Their new DDR3 1600MHz kit is rated with 8-8-8-20 timings at 1.8V.

In their booth, Crucial had an ASUS P35K3 powered demo system up and running their new DDR3 memory modules at 2GHz. The demo system said Ballistix Tracer, but to our knowledge the Tracer series has not been announced for the DDR3 series yet.

The new Ballistix DDR3 modules sport a new look thanks to the redesigned heat spreader with a clip-less design, giving the modules a cleaner look. The new Ballistix heat spreader design also features a Micron company logo on the heat spreader, which means that the modules use Micron memory IC’s.

The demo system was seen to be running at 2GHz with 9-9-9-27 2T timings, but was also observed crashing when running DOOM 3. The test system was later seen running Bioshock with no problems though. Running memory at 2GHz with stability is something that no one can do right now at production levels, so a crash here and there is totally expected.