While retail applications are not making use of all available bandwidth, the server industry is screaming for more bandwidth. Intel is expected to transition to DDR4 for servers in 2014 already, while the retail will have to wait for the year after.
Sandy Bridge-E impressed with its performance, but the four memory channels didn’t really add anything to the platform. The server versions of Sandy Bridge-E is a whole other story, where the memory channels comes to great use in several kinds of applications. We spoke with industry sources over the last few days who are about to build new server clusters saying that Sandy Bridge-EP (8-core version of Sandy Bridge-E) eats up all available bandwidth despite the four channels.
DDR3 is expected to scale above 2 000 MHz for servers in the future, so there is still some more to get from the current technology, but it will not be enough to satisfy the need of all cores since both AMD and Intel continue to add more of these with each generation. Transitioning to four memory channels will not be economically feasible defensible. Instead servers will get a taste of the new DDR4 standard, with socket 2015 and Haswell-EP(?) that will replace Ivy Bridge-EP in 2014.
DDR4 is expected to scale from 2133 MHz to 4266 MHz with voltages at 1.05 – 1.2 V, and many analysts believe that 4266 MHz 1.05 V modules will be enough for some time. DDR4 is also expected to rid the concept of memory channels as they are constructed today. Instead DDR4 will have a point-to-point topology, which means each module will work as a channel.
VR-Zone writes about the DDR4 support in the server version of Haswell, also says that each processor will sport up to 16 cores. If this is true there will be some gigantic circuits, even using Intel’s 22nm nanometer technology, and the extra bandwidth DDR4 has to offer should come to good use.
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