Technoglitch
Core Member
Earlier this year, AMD became the first GPU vendor to roll out graphics cards that utilized HBM, or High Bandwidth Memory. We’ve discussed this and other new memory technologies extensively over the past 10 months, and there’s wide agreement that HBM is the GPU RAM of Tomorrow for both AMD and Nvidia. What’s less clear, however, is how quickly HBM and its successor, HBM2, will waterfall down the product lines. Now there’s a rumor that Nvidia could adopt a new type of GDDR5, GDDR5X, for some of its Pascal GPUs in 2016.
Back on September 1, Micron made a pair of announcements concerning the future of its GDDR5 development. First, the company stated that it had developed new 8Gbps GDDR5 modules, which would allow companies to double RAM densities without adding more RAM chips. That’s important relative to scaling concerns, since one of the problems with GDDR5 scaling is that you can’t just keep embedding more memory around the GPU. There’s a minimal amount of room between traces to keep the electrical signaling clean.
Looking back across the years, there’s always been a transition phase between old and new memory standards. Back in the HD 3000 and 4000 period, AMD regularly rolled out its newest memory standards on upper-range cards, while midrange and budget models relied on older technology. GDDR5 debuted on the HD 4870 in 2008, but wasn’t deployed on anything but the flagship until 2009. As late as 2012, AMD was still using GDDR3 for the lowest-end GCN 1.0 GPUs.
Nvidia may tap bandwidth-doubling GDDR5X for next-generation hardware | ExtremeTech
Back on September 1, Micron made a pair of announcements concerning the future of its GDDR5 development. First, the company stated that it had developed new 8Gbps GDDR5 modules, which would allow companies to double RAM densities without adding more RAM chips. That’s important relative to scaling concerns, since one of the problems with GDDR5 scaling is that you can’t just keep embedding more memory around the GPU. There’s a minimal amount of room between traces to keep the electrical signaling clean.
Looking back across the years, there’s always been a transition phase between old and new memory standards. Back in the HD 3000 and 4000 period, AMD regularly rolled out its newest memory standards on upper-range cards, while midrange and budget models relied on older technology. GDDR5 debuted on the HD 4870 in 2008, but wasn’t deployed on anything but the flagship until 2009. As late as 2012, AMD was still using GDDR3 for the lowest-end GCN 1.0 GPUs.
Nvidia may tap bandwidth-doubling GDDR5X for next-generation hardware | ExtremeTech