Its specification was developed by ATI Technologies in collaboration with DRAM vendors including Elpida Memory, Hynix Semiconductor, Infineon (later Qimonda) and Micron.

It has much the same technological base as DDR2, but the power and heat dispersal requirements have been reduced somewhat, allowing for higher performance memory modules, and simplified cooling systems.

To improve throughput, GDDR3 memory transfers 4 bits of data per pin in 2 clock cycles.

Despite being designed by ATI, the first card to use the technology was nVidia's GeForce FX 5700 Ultra in early 2004, where it replaced the GDDR2 chips used up to that time.

GDDR3 was Sony's choice for the PlayStation 3 gaming console's graphics memory, although its nVidia based GPU is also capable of accessing the main system memory, which consists of XDR DRAM designed by Rambus Incorporated (Similar technology is marketed by nVidia as TurboCache in PC platform GPUs).