ram price differences

Why does sdram cost more than other types of ram??

 

Because very few people use that type of RAM, the prices go up.

 

1. is this due to performace issues?

2. if so, if a notebook takes sdram, is there anyway to use other types of ram in it?

 

The main reason why people don't use it, is because its not compatible with a vast amount of computers these days. Its also not particularly fast, as its not DDR.

If a notebook does take SDRAM, then it cannot take any other type of RAM.
If you did want to buy some SDRAM, then retail shop will have them at a high price. It may be better to try and find some used, or almost new.

Edit: It also matters if your RAM is SDRAM DDR, or just plain SDRAM.

 

So... ddr2 sdram is old or new or neither?

 

New. Most new systems use either DDR SDRAM or DDR2 SDRAM(which is even newer). Just plain SDRAM(or SDR SDRAM) is outdated.

 

SDRAM is really a type of RAM that also spans DDR and DDR2 (and DDR2 when that comes out).
But when they came up with it, they didn't really need to add anything to the name. It was just SDRAM. Then they came up with some improvements that allowed SD RAM to run faster. So they called that DDR SDRAM. The underlying technology is the same as for "plain" SDRAM, but they're not compatible.
The same goes for DDR2 and DDR3. Technically, they're all SDRAM, but they're not compatible with the stuff that's being sold as "SDRAM" (without the DDR/DDR2 prefix)

 

so there is no way to upgrade my ddr2 sdram to ddr3 sdram compatible?

-edit: I'm positive ddr3 just came out recently...

 

Err...No DDR3 is far far away from release(about a year or so). The newest RAM available currently DDR2.

The answer to your question about compatibility is most probably no, since it has always been the trend that newer memory is not compatible with older memory.

 

Thanks, I swore someone in this very forum wrote it was already out... but I'll take your word for it, and thanks for the info.

 

A variant of DDR3 is used for high-end graphics cards (And they're soon switching to DDR4).
They don't use "real" DDR3 though, but their own custom version of it. Basically, they have slightly different requirements, and when they started using it, the official DDR3 specs weren't even finalized. The ram used in graphics cards is usually known as GDDR3 (or GDDR2 or GDDR), and isn't compatible with anything else.

Apparently things might be a bit different with DDR3, by the way. According to AMD, their upcoming AM3 socket will support both DDR2 and DDR3. But other than that, there's no compatibility across generations. DDR and DDR2 are incompatible, just like SDRAM and DDR SDRAM are incompatible.

"regular" DDR3 isn't out yet though. A few companies have made test samples of DDR3 memory, but nothing that's available for sale or anything. Nor are there motherboards that support it yet.