Been browsing the web for like ages, trying to find out what type of mem is better for gfx cards. I found the following about DDR3 and this about GDDR3 and of cause a ton of people who claimed that there was no difference, some people should really get the fact strait before shouting them out. While those two links where very informative they weren't exactly very conclusive. So I'm afraid, that unless you brilliant people can help me out, it seems I am forced to give up and admit myself beaten.
 
So I ask what is better for gfx cards GDDR3 or DDR3

 
The G stands for 'graphics', as in memory developed for graphics cards or GDDR3.  DDR3 is the general reference to system memory, as in memory developed specifically for your MB chipset, as in PC1600 DDR3.  As far as you setting the facts straight, "How can I miss you when you won't go away."

Thx for your quick reply
 
Yeah I got the part about G standing for graphic as well, but that wasn't what I was asking m8
 
GFX card are produced both with GDDR3 and DDR3 so I gues what I am looking for is the pro's and con's of the two, before I wander out there and spend my hard earned cash on my new GFX cards.

Out of curiosity I went through the egg and found all video cards with DDR rather than GDDR.  None of which are up to date except for the non gaming type.  
 
You should concern yourself less with the memory and more with the stats, you'll find that all modern decent cards that are worth the money and have good framerates in tests run GDDR3, and I think ATI even has some cards with GDDR4, but I haven't researched that so don't quote me.

hmm you might be right since noone actulay seems to know whats best.

If I remember correctly, no graphics cards are created with DDR3, it's all GDDR3 but is often labelled wrong on the websites selling them. If you checked every manufacturer site, rather than websites selling them, I'm pretty sure you'll allways see GDDR3.
 
Anyway, GDDR3 is designed specifically for graphics cards (and graphics cards in turn are designed only to use GDDRx) and would probably be better than DDR3 when used on one. DDR3 would probably kick GDDR3's butt as system memory though, but I don't think it has been used as system memory except in the PS3.
 
Don't quote me on any of that though as I'm probably making it all up.

I remember reading about the GDDR versus DDR series a few years ago, and the most significant improvement of GDDR over DDR was:
 
1.  You can activate a memory bank and issue a read request in the same clock cycle.  In DDR they are each lagged by 1 clock because there is a collision.
 
2.  In GDDR you can write and read the same memory location at the same time.  This isn't as useful anymore because GPU cache is much improved over the 'old days' and you 'shouldn't' have to read the same location you are writing.
 
I tried doing a quick google search and I could only confirm #1, so #2 might not be correct but I couldn't find anything saying #2 isn't possible.

mothhive well acording to several producers your wrong, heres one example: Click me
On another note it's realy astonishing that it doesn't seem that theres a single person or website out there who has looked into this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDDR3
 
I'm surprised no one found that.

This DDR and GDDR is really strange for me.
 
The first HD3870 came with GDDR4 with mem speed around 2.25 GHz (1.12 actual). This means that it's faster than any DDR3 memory in the market.  
 
The HD3870 was sold at around 200USD with 512MB GDDR4. How much the price of the fastest 1GB DDR3? It's still more than 200USD. Just checked at newegg, Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1625 (PC3 13000), is priced at 409 USD. It's 2GB, it means that for 512MB we have to pay for 409/4 = ~102USD.
 
Now, what is the price of GDDR4 512MB if the HD3870 sold at 200USD. Around 100$? Assuming that for the GPU itself (all part minus memory) took 100$. GDDR4 (2.2GHz) >> DDR3 1625 (1.62GHz).  
 
I'm aware that GDDR has a different arhitecture with DDR. But if something can be applied in video card, than why can't it be applied for computer memory? If that happened, then we supposed to have faster and cheaper memory by now.
 
really strange to me ...  
 
Maybe there are some good reason behind it, but I smell some corporate marketing technique

DDR can make one read or one write operation at one time.
GDDR can make both.
For example: While getting the data from computer's main memory for the next frame, GPU can access the memory and do the operations about the current frame.

If it was standard DDR, either GPU or PCI-Express should wait in order to get exclusive access to framebuffer memory.

This way with the same speed GDDR memory can act 2 times faster.

[Edit: Sorry guys, misinformation. It was VRAM. Not GDDR...]

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a GPU is a parallel processor, and a cpu isnt? Think about it

I realy wish that Toms Hardware would make an article on this subject so relative hardware n00bs like me could feel more inlightened on this perticular subject.