Is DDR4 forward and backward compatible with DDR3?

Capodecina
Soldato
Joined
30 Jul 2006
Posts
12,130
DDR runs at Memory bus clock speed
DDR2 runs at twice Memory bus speed and at a lower voltage than DDR
DDR3 runs at four times Memory bus speed and at a lower voltage than DDR2

It is my understanding that DDR3 is not forward or backward compatible with earlier iterations; so one cannot use now redundant DDR2 memory planes from a borked DDR2 Motherboard (MoBo) in a DDR3 Mobo.

Is DDR4 not forward or backward compatible with DDR3?

I ask this because I want to increase the RAM in a DDR3 MoBo but would like to allow later use in a DDR4 MoBo which I may end up using in the future (or perhaps vice versa - reluctantly).
 
At least ddr4 is cheap at the moment :)
Yeessss . . . unfortunately, as has been pointed out to me above, of no possible value to me at present :(

On a slightly different front, I get the impression that there should not be a problem with installing "faster" RAM in my system - I currently have 667 MHz planes installed. Looking on CPU-Z, 666 MHz planes are described as JEDEC #4 and run at a voltage level of 1.5. 1200 MHz described as XMP-2400 is mentioned and is supposed to run at 1.65 V - what on Earth is XMP-2400 SDRAM, does it exist and should I be able to use it?

More pertinently, is there any reason why I should not try something like DDR3 PC3-1866 planes (e.g. Crucial 2 x 8GB DDR3L-1866 UDIMMs)? Are they likely to be compatible and if not, would the system simply revert to 667 MHz?
 
Back
Top Bottom