One of the most common questions I receive is, "My computer uses DDR3 RAM,
but all the new graphics cards come with GDDR5 RAM. Will they work in my system?"
In a word, yes. In 74 words, yes,
because the type of RAM your CPU can use, your system memory, doesn't impact
the type of RAM that your graphics card can use. Because the CPU or central
processing unit interacts directly with its own memory and the GPU or graphics
processing unit interacts directly with its own memory. Those processors work
together and communicate with each other through a PCI Express slot. So the type
of RAM they're each using doesn't matter. So another common question then
is this. Why is video card memory so far ahead of system memory? DDDR5 has been
available for years, while DDR4 is still
not available, and there's basically no mention of DDR5 at all. Can't we just
use GDDR for our CPUs to take advantage
of all those technology improvements? Well, this answer is a little bit more
complicated. Well, each new generation of GDDR or DDR aims for similar
improvements over the last one. higher capacities, reduced heat output and
power consumption and higher performance, particularly with respect
to maximum bandwidth. That doesn't mean that these technologies are the same. A
common misconception is that there is a correlation between the generational
numbers in GDDR and DDR, but actually
they're independent of each other. GDDR2
was somewhat related to DDR2, but the newer DDDR4 and DDDR5 standards are
actually much more closely related to DDR3 than to DDR4 or a future DDR5
standard. Okay, so if they're not really as different as they sound and they're
just variations of similar technology, why do we need two different types of
memory? Well, as the old saying goes, horses for courses, my friends. I mean,
oh gross. I didn't mean meal courses. I
meant race courses. Yuck. That's not even a tasteful joke. Sorry. Now that
we're back on track, now that's a great joke. My point stands. You want memory
that's specialized for your application. The way a typical person uses a
computer, we don't actually need any more bandwidth for system memory. It's
much more important for everyday tasks to have very low latency access to your
RAM with better granularity. While a graphics card is typically moving
massive chunks of data into and out of
the frame buffer that is the RAM, things like high resolution game textures or
large data sets for computer simulation work. The average desktop is being
bombarded with a multitude of much smaller transfers like that instant
message you just received or that virus scan that's picking through all your
files in the background. Normal DDR is optimized for desktop use and GDDR just
wouldn't be as suitable in spite of its impressive on paper performance numbers,
especially with respect to bandwidth. Speaking of impressive performance,
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