DDR3 to GDDR5

Hello;


I'm currently planning on obtaining a new laptop, mainly for gaming purposes, on the budget, and the Lenovo y510p has recently caught my eye (Feel free to throw in any recommendations you think are just as good if not better, than this laptop). However I noticed how all the models made only contain DDR3 Ram. Straight to the point: Is it possible to change that RAM for GDDR3 RAM instead? Is it possible to change the Ram at all (I'm sorry if this is a stupid question)?


Thanks

 

there is only DDR3 "ram" in the market as "system memory", however GDDR5 "video ram" is present on the graphics card as "graphics memory"

"ram" does nothing for gaming performance, "video ram" determines whether the video card has a high enough bandwidth for high resolution throughput

ram does nothing at games, DDR3 "video memory" has a bottleneck at 768p resolution so at higher resolution FPS drops drastically since the GPU renders the image fast enough but the DDR3 bandwidth limits the size of rendered image to be sent to the screen, GDDR5 supports up to 4k resolutions at full GPU speed so its not a problem

P.S. the Y510P comes with DDR3 ram and GDDR5 video memory, and no, using GDDR5 as ram will not speed up your game

 

He is most likely referring to the video ram:

A Nvidia 750M with GDDR5 video ram will run 15-20% faster than the same card with DDR3 vRAM.

 

he is referring to the y510p, how will it be GT750m DDR3 SLI instead of GT750m GDDR5 SLI

he must be looking at the system memory(ram) and freaked out, thinking that the video memory is DDR3 as well but in fact is GDDR5

 

The y510p cannot be had with DDR3, both for the system and video ram.

The system uses DDR3L RAM, and the (dual) GPU's use GDDR5.

 

Maybe someone should explain that there are two types of RAM: one for the system (which is limited to DDR3) and one for the GPU or graphics card which is a much higher quality DDR5 RAM.

I'm pretty sure that at this point you can no longer find the lower quality video card DDR3 RAM. At least not in a laptop.

 

Fixed.

Also, I would dispute that GDDR5 is much higher quality. After all, JEDEC essentially took the DDR3 standard and retuned it for higher bandwidth at the cost of higher latency and much higher power consumption/heat generation. It's just the age-old performance vs power consumption trade off.

 

All current laptops use DDR3 for system memory. As a good rule of thumb it is never possible to change the video ram on anything because it's either soldered on to the graphics board or on smaller notebooks, the motherboard. As for system memory, almost all computers only support one kind so it's safe to assume that you will not be able to change that after purchase.

 

You will be able to change system RAM with other size or speed modules just they have to adhere to the DDR3 standard.

There is DDR3 and GDDR5 (even GDDR4 at one point) of video RAM. But in any case video RAM is soldered on the video card PCB. You can't change desktop video card vRAM either. It's just integrated as part of the package.

 

What you really need to distinguish is what the RAM is used for.

System RAM on all modern laptop/desktop platforms at the moment is DDR3, the only exception is the PS4 which uses GDDR5. DDR3 technology has been around since forever and it is currently a very good balance of bandwidth vs latency.

Graphics RAM can be of 3 types in modern machines, GDDR3, gDDR3 and GDDR5.

GDDR3 is based on DDR2 technology (i.e. the signalling subsystem), it typically runs at 1.8V and can reach frequencies of 2800mhz. It is fully capable of bidirectional, simultaneous read and write operations. This RAM is very rare now as it has been mostly phased out but I've included it for completeness.

gDDR3 is based on the exact same technology as the DDR3 used in system RAM. The only difference is it usually runs at much looser latencies than system RAM. Operating as Graphics RAM, it typically runs at 1.5V or 1.35V (depending on the performance profile) and is usually shipped at 2000mhz (though it can be overclocked higher). Unlike GDDR3, it is NOT capable of simulatenous read/write operations, however, the impact on performance is negligible as far as I can tell.

GDDR5 is based on DDR3 technology however the signalling systems have been tuned and manufactured for high frequency operation. This means that GDDR5 is capable of extremely high throughput at the cost of higher latency. I'm not too sure of the operating voltage but I know there is a standard and low voltage version similar to gDDR3. Unlike gDDR3, GDDR5 implements ECC algorithms. As for silicon quality, I simply believe GDDR5 is different in architecture to gDDR3 as far as the binning process is concerned but it is no mistake that GDDR5 is more expensive.


As for the implications for graphics performance. Typically, the main influence of the memory subsystem is on the Raster Operators. ROPs are notoriously memory bandwidth constrained, and are mainly responsible for the duties of outputting the pixels on to your screen. I.e. higher resolution screens, shadows and MSAA to a degree all depend heavily on ROP output. However, many manufacturers equip powerful GPUs with gDDR3 which severely bottleneck the ROP output which in turn chokes the rest of the rendering pipeline. This vastly reduces performance, IMHO, if your GPU has 16 or more ROP at 500mhz, GDDR5 is mandatory regardless of resolution.