Would you buy DDR5 for system RAM on PC if you could?

Man, this guy here doesn't understand the distinction between GDDR and DDR. What a silly console pleb.

Seriously guys, building a PC is not hard at all. Why are some of you so smug about it?
 
Man, this guy here doesn't understand the distinction between GDDR and DDR. What a silly console pleb.

Seriously guys, building a PC is not hard at all. Why are some of you so smug about it?

Everyone is always impressed I can do this. And I anyways ask them if they can build with Legos because that is how ridiculously easy it is.
 
Man, this guy here doesn't understand the distinction between GDDR and DDR. What a silly console pleb.

Seriously guys, building a PC is not hard at all. Why are some of you so smug about it?

Yeah... back when I first started to build computers we actually had to try and translate some of that engrish in the motherboard manual to make sure we didn't set the voltage jumper wrong and thus cause a completely melted mobo... no over heat protection... old school.

Additionally, when I build PCs for friends and family, I tell them I'll wave the fee as long as they help with it's construction. Most are amazed with how "Square peg only fits in square hole" it all is. Usually the only problem any of them have is setting up the case switches.
 
Everybody should read this so threads like this stop popping up.

The hype on this has gotten out of hand. 8 GB in a console is the big deal. Some of you are acting like Sony invented a new type of RAM that you'll eventually be able to use on a home PC if you're lucky and you beg Kaz.

8 GRAPHICS DOUBLE DATA RATE (version) 5 SYNCHRONOUS DYNAMIC RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY.

HAIL KAZ.

HAIL SONY.

I admit, 20 pages of gddr5 in the playstation event thread had me rolling.
 
My favorite part of new console launches is all the console folks start trying to talk tech when they haven't the slightest idea as to what their talking about.

IT HAS A 5 ON THE END! 5 IS BIGGER THEN 3!


Yeah, the best thread for this was the 600 dollar PC vs. the PS4. That thread was a comedy gold mine for console fanboys trying to talk tech.
 
Everyone is always impressed I can do this. And I anyways ask them if they can build with Legos because that is how ridiculously easy it is.
I guess people are just afraid of technology or something. I genuinely believe that someone's grandmother could spend a couple of days on Google and figure it out.
 
I don't understand why people are comparing GDDR5 in PS4 to PC's.

Firstly... PC's don't use GDDR5 for memory... you can't get that much either. SLI/Crossfire doesn't "add" ram together.

Secondly... Having GDDR5 for fast CPU's in a PC would probably not be that great. CPU's need low latency, things like the i7 depend on low latency (of course they need BW as well).

Thirdly... Once again... we are talking about a console here... that has 6GB minimum being used for graphics alone. Get a GPU with 6GB of GDDR5 at that bandwidth (256bit or greater interface) and you'll be paying 600+. Sure they have more processing power for the GPU itself (and not just RAM) but still... having an option for that much GDDR5 will break the bank.
 
Man, this guy here doesn't understand the distinction between GDDR and DDR. What a silly console pleb.

Seriously guys, building a PC is not hard at all. Why are some of you so smug about it?

I think their attitudes are far more annoying than these threads. Thanks to the posters trying to actually educate people on the differences rather than making snide remarks. I actually learned stuff today.
 
CPUs and GPUs have different RAM requirements.

CPUs want RAM with low latency, so they can very quickly access and move small chunks of data around.
GPUs want RAM with high bandwidth, so they can move large chunks of data.

DDR3 is suited for CPUs. It is low latency, but also low bandwidth. It is the defacto RAM found in PCs and servers. You spend $10,000 on a server, and it will use DDR3.

GDDR5 is suited for GPUs. It is high latency, but also high bandwidth. Graphics cars above level entry will use GDDR5 for VRAM.

The Xbox 360 was the pioneer for using GDDR (in its case, GDDR3) for both system and VRAM. The PS4 is following suit. While this might be fine for dedicate gaming machines, for genral purpose computing and CPU intensive work, you want low latency RAM. Which is currently DDR3.

There is a reason the next Xbox has gone for the DDR3 + EDRAM approach. MS have designed the console for more than games. The non gaming apps want DDR3. The EDRAM is there to mitigate the low bandwidth main RAM to a certain degree. Sony seem to have designed the PS4 as a pure bread gaming console. Different priorities resulted in different RAM architectures.

TL;DR you don't want GDDR5 as system RAM in a PC. When DDR5 finally comes to market, it might have best of both worlds. Low latency for CPUs and high bandwidth for GPUs. Only then would you want it as system RAM.

Great explanation. However, I believe you meant to say "DDR4" instead of "DDR5" in your tl;dr. DDR4 just recently got wrapped up as a spec. Work hasn't begun on DDR5.

Some other things that I think are important to note:

1) The 3 and the 5 are the version numbers, but for separate things. DDR5 is not a thing yet (they're still working on DDR4 which should start releasing this year or next). It's very important that you have the "G" on there (which stands for graphics). It pains me when people see GDDR5 and DDR3 and think one is the obviously superior version. They are two separate products (imagine if the X360 was named Xbox 2. This is similar to someone saying PS3 > XB2, even though they're two separate product lines).

2) GDDR5 is actually based on DDR3 (as was GDDR4). They're basically two sides of the same coin. DDR3 is focused on low-latency, but with the tradeoff of lower-bandwidth, and GDDR5 has higher bandwidth, at the cost of higher-latency.
 
Man, this guy here doesn't understand the distinction between GDDR and DDR. What a silly console pleb.

Seriously guys, building a PC is not hard at all. Why are some of you so smug about it?


Who's being smug? Yeah building PC's is easy, but Googling technical jargon is even easier...
 
I'd take it for a graphics card, you'd only need it right now if you were doing some Pixar style downsampling. But hey, why not?

I'm not sure what effect the latency would have if yoy used it as actual motherboard RAM. They haven't released it there as it would likely become an epic bottleneck, unable to supply packets of data to the CPU quickly enough.
 
So is 8GB OF GDDR5 RAM going to be the next DAT OLED thing around here?

Anyway, no, I have never really aimed for high-end PC parts personally, I have always enjoyed living in the mids. Most of my PC gaming is indie games, so I never really need much juice under the hood. And I'm pretty convinced I'll be scrapping my desktop for a laptop in the next few years anyway.

And since Half-Life 3 will never exist I'll never really need to move from where my specs are now.

:(
 
I think their attitudes are far more annoying than these threads. Thanks to the posters trying to actually educate people on the differences rather than making snide remarks. I actually learned stuff today.

It's more that people are too lazy to spend a second looking up a term on wikipedia before shouting off how good it is
 
Let me tell you guys and gals something.

You want to know why people are hyping the PS4's 8GB GDDR5 RAM? Because PC gaf and all the experts said it was impossible. Nobody said anything about Durango's rumored DDR3 8GB. That, magically, was fine and dandy. But any talk of sony using 8GB was like cursing at jesus. What did you expect was going to happen after being told over and over and over and over x10 8GB of GDDR5 RAM can not be done and suddenly.......we get it? So everybody who's annoyed at this bragging of GDDR5, it's your own fault .
 
CPUs and GPUs have different RAM requirements.

CPUs want RAM with low latency, so they can very quickly access and move small chunks of data around.
GPUs want RAM with high bandwidth, so they can move large chunks of data.

DDR3 is suited for CPUs. It is low latency, but also low bandwidth. It is the defacto RAM found in PCs and servers. You spend $10,000 on a server, and it will use DDR3.

GDDR5 is suited for GPUs. It is high latency, but also high bandwidth. Graphics cars above level entry will use GDDR5 for VRAM.

The Xbox 360 was the pioneer for using GDDR (in its case, GDDR3) for both system and VRAM. The PS4 is following suit. While this might be fine for dedicate gaming machines, for genral purpose computing and CPU intensive work, you want low latency RAM. Which is currently DDR3.

There is a reason the next Xbox has gone for the DDR3 + EDRAM approach. MS have designed the console for more than games. The non gaming apps want DDR3. The EDRAM is there to mitigate the low bandwidth main RAM to a certain degree. Sony seem to have designed the PS4 as a pure bread gaming console. Different priorities resulted in different RAM architectures.

TL;DR you don't want GDDR5 as system RAM in a PC. When DDR5 finally comes to market, it might have best of both worlds. Low latency for CPUs and high bandwidth for GPUs. Only then would you want it as system RAM.

Great explanation. However, I believe you meant to say "DDR4" instead of "DDR5" in your tl;dr. DDR4 just recently got wrapped up as a spec. Work hasn't begun on DDR5.

Some other things that I think are important to note:

1) The 3 and the 5 are the version numbers, but for separate things. DDR5 is not a thing yet (they're still working on DDR4 which should start releasing this year or next). It's very important that you have the "G" on there (which stands for graphics). It pains me when people see GDDR5 and DDR3 and think one is the obviously superior version. They are two separate products (imagine if the X360 was named Xbox 2. This is similar to someone saying PS3 > XB2, even though they're two separate product lines).

2) GDDR5 is actually based on DDR3 (as was GDDR4). They're basically two sides of the same coin. DDR3 is focused on low-latency, but with the tradeoff of lower-bandwidth, and GDDR5 has higher bandwidth, at the cost of higher-latency.

These two posts... basically what I said, but they said it first.
 
I guess people are just afraid of technology or something. I genuinely believe that someone's grandmother could spend a couple of days on Google and figure it out.

No, people are just lazy.

You have to read up, people who aren't interested in this technical jargon get put off. The lego comment is right though, my brother helped me build my gaming PC, but I looked everything up and bought all the parts, he helped me piece everything together but he never would have been bothered to research how to build a PC.
 
Yeah... back when I first started to build computers we actually had to try and translate some of that engrish in the motherboard manual to make sure we didn't set the voltage jumper wrong and thus cause a completely melted mobo... no over heat protection... old school.

Additionally, when I build PCs for friends and family, I tell them I'll wave the fee as long as they help with it's construction. Most are amazed with how "Square peg only fits in square hole" it all is. Usually the only problem any of them have is setting up the case switches.
Oh yeah, I'm sure it was an actual achievement back in the day. I have a huge amount of respect for the elders back in '94 who did shit like taught themselves C without any kind of IDE or anything.
 
I Not sure why PC people are being smug and snarky though. Sharing knowledge is never a bad thing, but lording it over other people surely is!

Probably because the board exploded with a giant dick measuring contest about magic RAM when most only were excited because everyone else told them they should be not because they actually understand it
 
Let me tell you guys and gals something.

You want to know why people are hyping the PS4's 8GB GDDR5 RAM? Because PC gaf and all the experts said it was impossible. Nobody said anything about Durango's rumored DDR3 8GB. That, magically, was fine and dandy. But any talk of sony using 8GB was like cursing at jesus. What did you expect was going to happen after being told over and over and over and over x10 8GB of GDDR5 RAM can not be done and suddenly.......we get it? So everybody who's annoyed at this bragging of GDDR5, it's your own fault .

Well as 8 gig of ddr3 is normal in a PC they wouldn't, 8 gigs gddr5 is unheard of and very expensive.
 
lol

i'm not sure if OP is serious or not. I think I've been using GDDR5 for 3-4 years now...

I think the big deal is not only bandwidth (256 and 384 bit interfaces are expensive) but amount as well.

I highly doubt you even have a 4GB card with GDDR5, and if you did, the game didn't use it.
 
Let me tell you guys and gals something.

You want to know why people are hyping the PS4's 8GB GDDR5 RAM? Because PC gaf and all the experts said it was impossible. Nobody said anything about Durango's rumored DDR3 8GB. That, magically, was fine and dandy. But any talk of sony using 8GB was like cursing at jesus. What did you expect was going to happen after being told over and over and over and over x10 8GB of GDDR5 RAM can not be done and suddenly.......we get it? So everybody who's annoyed at this bragging of GDDR5, it's your own fault .

Eh, I think its more console fanboys who use this as some sort of holy sword, and yet don't know what it does or really what it even means. See the number of threads about what the RAM means?

Even still, those who said it wasn't possible have admitted to it. What you have now is a bunch of wannabe technical experts spouting hot air. And that just makes them look stupid.
 
Great explanation. However, I believe you meant to say "DDR4" instead of "DDR5" in your tl;dr. DDR4 just recently got wrapped up as a spec. Work hasn't begun on DDR5.

Some other things that I think are important to note:

1) The 3 and the 5 are the version numbers, but for separate things. DDR5 is not a thing yet (they're still working on DDR4 which should start releasing this year or next). It's very important that you have the "G" on there (which stands for graphics). It pains me when people see GDDR5 and DDR3 and think one is the obviously superior version. They are two separate products (imagine if the X360 was named Xbox 2. This is similar to someone saying PS3 > XB2, even though they're two separate product lines).

2) GDDR5 is actually based on DDR3 (as was GDDR4). They're basically two sides of the same coin. DDR3 is focused on low-latency, but with the tradeoff of lower-bandwidth, and GDDR5 has higher bandwidth, at the cost of higher-latency.

And that is fine, but what we need to know is whether one or the other is better for gaming?

Taking into account the PS4 architecture: would the GDDR5 bandwidth outweigh the higher latency, or is lower latency of DDR3 more important than higher bandwidth?
 
Yeah... back when I first started to build computers we actually had to try and translate some of that engrish in the motherboard manual to make sure we didn't set the voltage jumper wrong and thus cause a completely melted mobo... no over heat protection... old school.

Additionally, when I build PCs for friends and family, I tell them I'll wave the fee as long as they help with it's construction. Most are amazed with how "Square peg only fits in square hole" it all is. Usually the only problem any of them have is setting up the case switches.

Remember what happened when you plugged the 2 AT power plugs in backwards? (and yes, for the youngins, the plugs would accept it).

Ahhh good times.

Anyway, driving 1080p games won't exactly require anywhere near 8GB obviously. But because it's used as system memory as well I can see it being eaten up by various other functions.
 
Yeah... back when I first started to build computers we actually had to try and translate some of that engrish in the motherboard manual to make sure we didn't set the voltage jumper wrong and thus cause a completely melted mobo... no over heat protection... old school.


No more using a pencil to overclock your cpu :(
 
Well as 8 gig of ddr3 is normal in a PC they wouldn't, 8 gigs gddr5 is unheard of and very expensive.

Yes i know. Still, people are bursting with joy because gaf said GDDR5 is impossible. And we actually get it and people are excited and now everyones frustrated and annoyed. Get out of here with that shit. You created this.
 
I think the big deal is not only bandwidth (256 and 384 bit interfaces are expensive) but amount as well.

I highly doubt you even have a 4GB card with GDDR5, and if you did, the game didn't use it.

because there is no need for it. i already have 8gb of dedicated system memory
 
Let me tell you guys and gals something.

You want to know why people are hyping the PS4's 8GB GDDR5 RAM? Because PC gaf and all the experts said it was impossible. Nobody said anything about Durango's rumored DDR3 8GB. That, magically, was fine and dandy. But any talk of sony using 8GB was like cursing at jesus. What did you expect was going to happen after being told over and over and over and over x10 8GB of GDDR5 RAM can not be done and suddenly.......we get it? So everybody who's annoyed at this bragging of GDDR5, it's your own fault .
Well I mean, they were hardly wrong. 8GB of GDDR5 RAM was totally unexpected and it's hard to fault anyone for saying as much. 8GB of DDR3 is middle of the mall shit. It'll be great to finally have that much RAM in consoles, but it's definitely not surprising or anything.
 
Yes.

The single reason gamers are warned to not go to APUs is because of the painfully slow access the GPU portion has to RAM.

This, coupled with higher clocked GPU cores, would be an awesome thing for Haswell and AMD's Fusion line. There would be little need for a discrete card. That makes for smaller and better looking/more functional cases.

We could see TRUE gaming tablets.
 
Yes i know. Still, people are bursting with joy because gaf said GDDR5 is impossible. And we actually get it and people are excited and now everyones frustrated and annoyed. Get out of here with that shit. You created this.
Did I? Blimey. I have no idea how when I've not really commented on it before today.

I'm interested to see what they do myself.
 
CPUs and GPUs have different RAM requirements.

CPUs want RAM with low latency, so they can very quickly access and move small chunks of data around.
GPUs want RAM with high bandwidth, so they can move large chunks of data.

DDR3 is suited for CPUs. It is low latency, but also low bandwidth. It is the defacto RAM found in PCs and servers. You spend $10,000 on a server, and it will use DDR3.

GDDR5 is suited for GPUs. It is high latency, but also high bandwidth. Graphics cars above level entry will use GDDR5 for VRAM.

The Xbox 360 was the pioneer for using GDDR (in its case, GDDR3) for both system and VRAM. The PS4 is following suit. While this might be fine for dedicate gaming machines, for genral purpose computing and CPU intensive work, you want low latency RAM. Which is currently DDR3.

There is a reason the next Xbox has gone for the DDR3 + EDRAM approach. MS have designed the console for more than games. The non gaming apps want DDR3. The EDRAM is there to mitigate the low bandwidth main RAM to a certain degree. Sony seem to have designed the PS4 as a pure bread gaming console. Different priorities resulted in different RAM architectures.

TL;DR you don't want GDDR5 as system RAM in a PC. When DDR5 finally comes to market, it might have best of both worlds. Low latency for CPUs and high bandwidth for GPUs. Only then would you want it as system RAM.

Great explanation. However, I believe you meant to say "DDR4" instead of "DDR5" in your tl;dr. DDR4 just recently got wrapped up as a spec. Work hasn't begun on DDR5.

Some other things that I think are important to note:

1) The 3 and the 5 are the version numbers, but for separate things. DDR5 is not a thing yet (they're still working on DDR4 which should start releasing this year or next). It's very important that you have the "G" on there (which stands for graphics). It pains me when people see GDDR5 and DDR3 and think one is the obviously superior version. They are two separate products (imagine if the X360 was named Xbox 2. This is similar to someone saying PS3 > XB2, even though they're two separate product lines).

2) GDDR5 is actually based on DDR3 (as was GDDR4). They're basically two sides of the same coin. DDR3 is focused on low-latency, but with the tradeoff of lower-bandwidth, and GDDR5 has higher bandwidth, at the cost of higher-latency.
These should become mandatory reading fro those people who don't know how computers work.
And that is fine, but what we need to know is whether one or the other is better for gaming?

Taking into account the PS4 architecture: would the GDDR5 bandwidth outweigh the higher latency, or is lower latency of DDR3 more important than higher bandwidth?
The large pool of GDDR5 will be great for the GPU, but becuase of the high latency, the CPU could be potentially be starved of data since it would have to wait more clock cycles to get data from memory.
 
Yes i know. Still, people are bursting with joy because gaf said GDDR5 is impossible. And we actually get it and people are excited and now everyones frustrated and annoyed. Get out of here with that shit. You created this.


The OP isn't asking if it's impressive, they're asking if PC owners would use "DDR5" if they could. Presumabley they mean GDDR5 and presumably they didn't realise it's been in use in graphics cards for years. They are being corrected on that.

Unfortunately it's only one of many GDDR5-toting threads out there. If they're excited by 8GB of it, no probs. But if they're implying it's the new Blast Processing then its getting bit much.
 
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