Samsung is ready with its new DDR3 memory. We expect to see the samples at Cebit as the production of the memory is not that far away. Intel plans its first DDR 3 chipset for Q2 2007 and will follow up with X38 the high end one in Q3 2007.  

There are two key advantages for DDR 3 versus DDR 2 memory. The key one is that you can reach 1333 and even 1600 MHz speeds. The best DDR 2 we ever tested stops at around 1300 MHz and it is unimaginable to gets to 1600 MHz. DDR2 needs 2.3 or more Volts to work at such a high speed while DDR 3 will need less.

The second element why DDR3 is a good thing is lower voltage as the memory now works at 1.5 V. DDR 2 needs at least 1.8 V to works and it needs more if you overclock.

Samsung plans to sample its customers with 256, 512 and 1024 MB modules in Q1 2007 while the production of 1024 modules with eight chips and 2048 MB modules with 16 chips is scheduled for second part of 2007.

This year is the begin of DDR3 but only for Intel chips as AMD already said no to GDDR3 in 2007.