The thing is, AMD is forced to move to DDR3 eventually - simply because DDR3's data density is designed to be higher, so should we start wanting 4/8GB sticks of memory, DDR3 is our only option. That's not a huge jump and with ever higher latencies that naturally accompany every DDR evolution, does this mean anything significant for AMD's new products? Official support comes in at just 1,333MHz, with an 'unofficial' 1,600MHz available on some motherboards as well. Since AMD increased its official DDR2 support to 1,066MHz with the K10 architecture, the jump to DDR3 isn't that great.

There were other factors in play too - AMD jumped from DDR-400 to DDR2-800, effectively doubling its memory bandwidth and, coupled with a bout of oversupply from the memory manufacturers, caused a prolonged period of very low DDR2 prices that never really recovered - to the customers' benefit. However, the same was said about the transition from DDR to DDR2 for AMD - as it was then, it wasn't until AMD jumped on board that the price of memory really started to tumble and the upgrades were more viable. That's not to say AMD and its customers still don't have reservations about how much performance the extra memory bandwidth offers over 1,066MHz DDR2 when comparing the cost of upgrading to DDR3. Tax)ĪMD has followed Intel's transition to DDR3 with the launch of its socket AM3 CPUs this week. Tax)ĪMD Phenom II X3 710 UK Price (as reviewed): £101.80 (inc. Tax)ĪMD Phenom II X3 720 UK Price (as reviewed): £118.89 (inc. Tax)ĪMD Phenom II X4 805 UK Price (as reviewed): £149.99 (inc. AMD Phenom II 810, 805, 720, 710 AM3 CPUs Manufacturer: AMDĪMD Phenom II X4 810 UK Price (as reviewed): £144.56 (inc.

Amd phenom ii x4 810