DDR3 memory to come in 2007

Intel's memory techs have been talking about their roadmap for system memory over the next 24 months.

Surprisingly, still on the list is DDR and Rambus! DDR is being phased out of every sector by the end of this year, whilst Rambus is being moved into the embedded sector for use in smaller and more specialised devices.

DDR 2 is being ramped up, with 667MHz becoming the new standard and 800MHz sticks becoming the new high end by the beginning of next year. 800MHz will only be available at 5-5-5 timings and faster, for the optimum performance.

However, we're all keen to know what's coming after DDR2. DDR3 will be the new memory technology for the platforms of the future, but that isn't going to start arriving until the very end of 2006 and the beginning of 2007. However, when it does arrive it's going to scale up to 1600MHz.

Before that happens, we will start to see the introduction of Fully Buffered DIMMs, memory sticks that use a new interconnect which Intel thinks is going to help push performance to the next level, especially in more business oriented platforms.

We're going to have plenty of information about FB-DIMMs for you coming over the rest of the week. In the meantime, it looks as though DDR3 is only going to be on graphics cards for the foreseeable future.

Thoughts?