Slides touting GDDR5X memory advantages leak online

[HEXUS]

Such graphics RAM can deliver twice the data rate achieved by GDDR5.

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[DemonHighwayman]

So i'm guessing this will be used on lower end cards, I just hope it doesn't slow down the adoption of HBM.

[kalniel]

So i'm guessing this will be used on lower end cards, I just hope it doesn't slow down the adoption of HBM.

I think DDR4 will be used on the lowest end, this gives the mid range a bit more breathing room *if* it's adopted, which I have some doubts about. But HBM blows this out of the water and I don't think costs the earth, just time.

[scaryjim]

... HBM blows this out of the water and I don't think costs the earth, just time.

I'll be interested to see if next year's mid range gets HBM1 while the top end get HBM2, or if HBM2 will just trickle straight down. After all, the potential capacity and bandwidth per stack for HBM2 is pretty phenomenal.

Can't really see the benefit of what is essentially just faster GDDR5. Board space will remain an issue, and I assume power consumption will too, since you'll still need a lot of power to drive those long PCB traces at high data rates. Plus didn't AMD save significant silicon by engineering Hawaii for a wider but slower memory bus? Presumably GDDR5X controllers will require those larger PHYs to drive the very high data rates? It seems like a retrograde concept tbh.

[kalniel]

Can't really see the benefit of what is essentially just faster GDDR5. Board space will remain an issue, and I assume power consumption will too, since you'll still need a lot of power to drive those long PCB traces at high data rates. Plus didn't AMD save significant silicon by engineering Hawaii for a wider but slower memory bus? Presumably GDDR5X controllers will require those larger PHYs to drive the very high data rates? It seems like a retrograde concept tbh.

Yeah, I think it's basically for rebrands. If we get this/last years GPUs rebranded yet again with more memory, they might just plonk on some DDR5x chips and update the mem controller.

[lumireleon]

At this level of technological advancement of the current GDDR5 memory its speed is sufficient but the GPU suffers slowness that's why even if you add HBM to a GTX970 GPU don't expect frame rates similar to a 980 at 4k. I want GPU efficiency and more performance per dollar that's where Pascal and next gen Fury come to mind even if they will run at the current GDDR5 tech.

[kalniel]

At this level of technological advancement of the current GDDR5 memory its speed is sufficient but the GPU suffers slowness that's why even if you add HBM to a GTX970 GPU don't expect frame rates similar to a 980 at 4k. I want GPU efficiency and more performance per dollar that's where Pascal and next gen Fury come to mind even if they will run at the current GDDR5 tech.

That doesn't seem to be the case - Fury made quite large leaps in performance once configured to take advantage of the bandwidth, and likewise a lot of performance has been found in current gen cards by reducing the bandwidth requirements via compression, also suggesting the mem bandwidth can be limiting with current tech.

[Corky34]

I could be wrong but i thought as resolutions go up more demand is placed on the memory, throughput wise.

[canopus72]

GDDR5X will also be much cheaper than HBM2. I suspect the vast majority of pc enthusiasts will be plumping for AMD and gimpvidia next gen gpu's that have employed GDDR5X (HBM2 will be reserved for their top dog gpu's). Looking forward to 490X with 8GB of GDDR5X.