DDR3 and DDR5

[e-coli]

Could someone please explain the difference between DDR3 and DDR5 RAM?
Thanks in advanced!
-e-coli



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Prebuilt Dell XPS8500 system
-8GB DDR3 RAM
-GT640 graphics card
-Intel i7 3770 8 CPUs

 

[tassietim]

basically same thing just ddr5 ram has higher frequencies then ddr3 has, which is why its used on graphics cards , ddr3 atm highest system ram u can get for mb ram slots use
no doubt some1 else give better answer not really up on technical stuff like that

 

[manofchalk]

Think you mean GDDR5.
As Tassietim pointed out, its basically a faster version of RAM that is used on graphics cards (known as VRAM).

 

[rene13cross]

GDDR5 is based on DDR3 but has double the bandwidth of DDR3 (hence why you often see a base clock and then an "effective clock" beside it in parentheses which is simply that base clock multiplied by 4 [instead of 2 with normal DDR3 memory]). Graphics cards require memory that's extremely fast to operate optimally so instead of slapping on the "slow" DDR3 memory, they optimised it to have twice the bandwidth giving it a much higher effective speed. It is more expensive than the traditional DDR3 and requires more power and creates more heat.

I don't know all that much about it but you can read the Wikipedia entry on it to learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GDDR5

 

[e-coli]

Thanks.
Does this mean that memory also has clock speeds?
(I just want to be sure)

 

[manofchalk]

Yep, and you can overclock it if you can be bothered (quite difficult for little performance boost, so most dont bother.)
Graphics card memory can be overclocked quite easily though and leads to a decent boost in performance.

 

[jtrdfw]

Yep, and you can overclock it if you can be bothered (quite difficult for little performance boost, so most dont bother.)
Graphics card memory can be overclocked quite easily though and leads to a decent boost in performance.

While I have limited memory bandwidth cards (660ti sli) I want to agree and emphasize this. I gained 20% fps in Heaven 4.0 from a 17% overclock in vram. Never before in my life have I seen a greater % performance than the actual overclock.

On top of the fact that it virtually eliminated stutters, dips, and drops at 60 fps.

On the other hand, overclocking my clock speed did absolutely nothing. Granted, my "boost" was already quite high, and I am memory bottlenecked relative to other modern cards. But still, zero improvement for say 80-90 more mhz on both cards.

edit: lmao this thread is 2 years old. Still, relevant info as this is the first thing to come up in a google search about ddr3 and ddr5

 

[ChauhanPiyush]

Think you mean GDDR5.
As Tassietim pointed out, its basically a faster version of RAM that is used on graphics cards (known as VRAM).

can gddr5 graphic card fit in ddr3 slot?

 

[manofchalk]

No, it comes soldered to the card.