AMD holds off on DDR-2 support

AMD HAS BEEN RUMOURED to be coming out with DDR2 in Q2, and documents floating around the i915/925 launch said as much. AMD basically said 'we could do it now, but why', and followed it up with numbers proving that it made little sense until DDR2-667 hit.

Well, as they say about the best laid plans, it isn't going to happen this year. AMD backpedalled on DDR2 support, and will hold off until Socket 1207 hits in 2006. One person at CES was quoted as saying 'no way, no how', and that is about all there is to say.

AMD could do it with S939 CPUs - the pins are there, but I can see it causing a lot of confusion. One of the drawbacks of the internal memory controller is that you can't change it out. AMD has to have support for DDR2 on all the S939 CPUs or it will find itself in a support nightmare. How do you tell Joe Average how to decode the CPU serial numbers? In fact, how do you explain to him that while it fits in the socket, it won't work with the new mobo?

While I think it is the right thing for AMD to do from their point of view, I am a little disappointed. I would like to see what a DDR2-800 and PCIe S939 board can do. Ah well, you win some and lose others. µ

See Also
AMD ponders new desktop sockets
Next gen AMD Opterons to have 1207 pins
AMD holds aces for server market in 2005