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SK Hynix is almost ready to produce GDDR6 memory with higher than expected per-pin bandwidth:
In a surprising move, SK Hynix has announced its first memory chips based on the yet-unpublished GDDR6 standard. The new DRAM devices for video cards have capacity of 8 Gb and run at 16 Gbps per pin data rate, which is significantly higher than both standard GDDR5 and Micron's unique GDDR5X format. SK Hynix plans to produce its GDDR6 ICs in volume by early 2018.
GDDR5 memory has been used for top-of-the-range video cards for over seven years, since summer 2008 to present. Throughout its active lifespan, GDDR5 increased its data rate by over two times, from 3.6 Gbps to 9 Gbps, whereas its per chip capacities increased by 16 times from 512 Mb to 8 Gb. In fact, numerous high-end graphics cards, such as NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1060 and 1070, still rely on the GDDR5 technology, which is not going anywhere even after the launch of Micron's GDDR5X with up to 12 Gbps data rate per pin in 2016. As it appears, GDDR6 will be used for high-end graphics cards starting in 2018, just two years after the introduction of GDDR5X.
Previously: Samsung Announces Mass Production of HBM2 DRAM
DDR5 Standard to be Finalized by JEDEC in 2018
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Monday May 01 2017, @01:15PM (1 child)
Will be interesting to compare with HBM2, or even HBM1 for that matter (as found on the Fury X). My basic understanding was that GDDR5X is slower than HBM1, but it was going to be too costly for Nvidia to re-architect for HBM1 so they went with GDDR5X anyway since it was similar to the older GDDR5?
No surprise then that the RX400 and RX500 series only uses GDDR5 due to the mid-range high value aims, but perhaps the upcoming high-end Vega range will be using HBM2? We shouldn't have to wait long to find out.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Monday May 01 2017, @02:21PM
NVIDIA did skip HBM1, which is not nearly as capable as HBM2. I hear that HBM2 (which should be HBM3 before long) is still more expensive than GDDR5X or GDDR6. GDDR6 enables rather high memory bandwidth, so the benefits of HBM aren't necessarily as apparent. HBM however does take up less die space and has lower power consumption.
Vega will have HBM. [google.com]
The rumor mill (just noticed) is explicitly saying that NVIDIA Volta will use GDDR6 [wccftech.com]. Compare to the AnandTech article in the summary which just says "SK Hynix is not disclosing the name of its partner among GPU developers".
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]