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FeaturesEverything You Need to Know About GDDR Memory

Posted 09/16/08 at 01:11:36 AM by Michael Brown

We invariably refer to the video memory in modern videocards as GDDR, differentiating it only by version (GDDR2, GDDR3, GDDR4, and now GDDR5), but the technology’s full acronym is actually GDDR SDRAM, which stands for Graphics Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory.

“Double data rate” describes the memory’s capacity for double-pumping data: Transfers occur on both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal. This endows memory clocked at 800MHz with an effective data-transfer rate of 1.6GHz. “Synchronous” refers to the memory’s ability to operate in time with the computer’s system bus. This allows the memory to accept a new instruction without having to wait for a previous instruction to be processed, a practice known as instruction pipelining.

Think you know everything about GDDR? Read on.

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FeaturesIn the Lab: Will Smith Gets Burned by the Apple TV

Posted 04/29/08 at 03:38:06 PM by Will Smith

As part of my testing for this month’s cover feature, I spent a few quality days watching movies from the iTunes Store on my PC and in my living room. By necessity, I had to integrate a newly updated Apple TV into my entertainment center, which is a fairly common closed cabinet with a few air vents in the back. All of my other electronics devices—my receiver, my TiVo, my Xbox 360—live happily in this environment (although I do open the cabinet door when I fire up the 360).

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FeaturesIn the Lab: David Murphy Doesn't Like Microsoft Mucking with Standards

Posted 04/04/08 at 04:33:27 PM by David Murphy

Guess who's to blame for your media streaming woes? (Hint: Microsoft)