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DDR4 is messing up my gameplans
So next year at some point, I was planning on buying some new components. One was going to be AMD's new steamroller architecture, another was going to be the ATI 8xxx series.
Today though I noticed that DDR4 is set to come out late this year. I'm sorta worried that if I buy the new motherboard to support the Steamroller arch (Mine only supports AM3, not AM3+), that I'm going to get screwed over because DDR4 is going to come out, and all most of the motherboards will adopt it / support it.
Should I be worried, or will they not finish adopting this new hardware until around 2016?
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Comments
Unless you have ideas about buying Kaveri and using the integrated graphics in it, I'd recommend changing your plans on both counts.
AMD already has a bunch of Radeon HD 8000 series cards out. They're mostly OEM-only rebrands of 7000 series cards. When AMD has something new to sell, I'd expect them to call it the Radeon HD 9000 series. I'd expect them to launch cards on TSMC's upcoming 20 nm process node early next year. At the top end, I'd expect performance a little better than a GeForce GTX Titan, while using less power, and costing about $500.
As for Steamroller cores, it's unclear whether those will make their way into any parts other than Kaveri, which will top out at four cores and have integrated graphics built in. AMD hasn't announced its desktop parts for 2014, but they have announced server parts, and the chip you probably want isn't on there. They offer a refresh of Piledriver cores, a server version of Kaveri, and a chip with ARM cores, but nothing with more than four Steamroller cores. AMD has lost a ton of money on their FX-series parts and might have decided that making an FX-series part with Steamroller cores would be unprofitable.
That said, server parts generally come out a while after the equivalent desktop parts (e.g., Intel still doesn't have their Ivy Bridge-based Xeon E5 or E7 parts out), so AMD might well launch a successor to Vishera, but if the server version isn't coming in 2014, the desktop version surely won't be until late 2014--by which time, it might make more sense to just use Excavator cores.
As for DDR4, yes, that means a new socket for everything. I don't expect AMD to launch a successor to Vishera until they can equip it with DDR4. Vishera itself was a replacement for a part that was originally supposed to use DDR4 and launch in 2012, but DDR4 has been greatly delayed. I think it's expected that the transition to DDR4 will take place during 2014, but it's been delayed so much by now that I don't think it's automatic that major commercial parts that use it are imminent.
That, and the bump in RAM speed hasn't translated to huge gains in gaming.
DDR3 is faster than DDR2 - no disputing that. But looking at it in a gaming-related context, you don't get much FPS improvement, nor any other really tangible speed improvement.
Here's just one example; using same CPU (Phenom II) and same hardware, only difference is motherboard with DDR2 vs DDR3:
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1782/amd_phenom_ii_ddr2_vs_ddr3_performance/index11.html
0.75 FPS difference - not exactly a game-changer.
I expect something similar with the jump from DDR3 to DDR4 - if you have the choice between the two and they are the same price, go for the faster one, but don't hold your breath waiting for it, and don't pay a lot more extra for it.
It depends greatly on what you're planning on feeding from that memory bandwidth. If you want to feed powerful integrated graphics, you need all of the memory bandwidth you can get. If you have ambitions about feeding 20 CPU cores in a single socket--as AMD does, or at least did--you need a lot of memory bandwidth. If you've only got 4 CPU cores and are running games that don't even push four cores, then you don't need so much memory bandwidth.
DDR4 might someday be nifty in $70 video cards, once it becomes cheaper than DDR3 and you can get ~3 GHz DDR4 without paying too much of a price premium. But we're probably 2-3 years away from that. DDR4 should also be lower power for a given speed than DDR3, which will be nice in laptops.
A gaming rig built just below bleeding edge tech has a rough 4 to 5 year life (in a gamers eyes, some would even say 3 years), I would build now because all the dust from a DDR4 release would just of settled in time for another new build.
I would say 4 years and some change for DDR4 to achieve full market penetration with software and hardware now in step.
This is because of yet another socket change, the problems they are having even making DDR4, and production lead time and cycles.
I doubt quad-channel memory will have much impact on gaming. As seen in the tests linked below, triple-channel memory was less than 5% better than dual-channel in the games tested. Even single-channel memory performed almost as well as dual and triple channel, with less than 10% performance difference in gaming.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Intel-Core-i7-Nehalem,2057-13.html
I think the better way to think about Game Performance is what developers are developing for. There really has not been a strong reason to upgrade since 2006. That's because developers were not developing for the PC, but the console. With that in mind, the performance and technology in a modern PC is leagues ahead of what developers are creating right now, and what will be released in the next 2 years.
When you build a PC, you are really looking at something that is going to keep you satisfied for about 4 years. Your PC will be facing games that are played on the PS4 and Xbox One that make use of larger memory bandwidth. We also don't have much information on the DDR3 that the Xbox One is employing. It could be quad channel memory considering the AMD does have systems that use quad channel DDR3 memory. You also have to consider current AM3+ boards are based on a chipset that is 2 years old.
Do you really want to use an outdated socket design that will most likely be refreshed when the processor you plan to upgrade to is released? It really does not make sense because you will be handicapping the CPU as well. If you are going AMD, I would either get an APU or wait until AMD refreshes their offerings so you have something that will hold up better for four years.