AMD Working On An Entire Range of HBM GPUs To Follow Fiji And Fury Lineup – Has Priority To HBM2 Cap

arknor · 16 Jul 2015 at 14:35

I'm sure these will be "too little too late"

Boomstick777 · 16 Jul 2015 at 14:53

arknor said:
I'm sure these will be "too little too late"

Nvidia's HBM cards?

arknor · 16 Jul 2015 at 15:11

Boomstick777 said:
Nvidia's HBM cards?

amds drivers? is that why amd people no longer buy games on release

r7slayer · 16 Jul 2015 at 15:15

arknor said:
amds drivers? is that why amd people no longer buy games on release

I buy games on release just not gameworks games. :rolleyes:

arknor · 16 Jul 2015 at 15:21

r7slayer said:
I buy games on release just not gameworks games.

most the AAA titles avoided then :eek:

humbug · 16 Jul 2015 at 15:48

Orangey said:
In addition to getting all the supply, it seems AMD have patents:

https://www.google.com/patents/WO2014025676A1?cl=en

Cough up Nvidia?

It would be ironic if Nvidia outsell AMD on HBM but have to pay AMD for everyone they do sell

Gerard · 16 Jul 2015 at 15:52

arknor said:
most the AAA titles avoided then

Yeah like the latest batman, quality gameworks title that. Its clear that nvidia's input into the game made it so much better. :eek:

D.P. · 16 Jul 2015 at 16:10

humbug said:
It would be ironic if Nvidia outsell AMD on HBM but have to pay AMD for everyone they do sell

They don't, HBM is an open standard.

humbug · 16 Jul 2015 at 16:37

D.P. said:
They don't, HBM is an open standard.

There is nothing in your link that says its Open Standard.

I'm not saying that it is or isn't, all i'm saying is AMD have HBM patents.

D.P. · 16 Jul 2015 at 16:50

humbug said:
There is nothing in your link that says its Open Standard.

I'm not saying that it is or isn't, all i'm saying is AMD have HBM patents.

HBM is a JEDEC standard, which entails open standard.

Of courseAMD have patents, everyone has patents, I have have patents. Patents don't mean squat.

Anyone can manufacture true and sell HBM memory and AMD don't get a penny.

Orangey · 16 Jul 2015 at 17:08

It's funny comparing this debate to the one on the Nvidia patent trolling story.

Silent_Scone · 16 Jul 2015 at 17:28

humbug said:
There is nothing in your link that says its Open Standard.

I'm not saying that it is or isn't, all i'm saying is AMD have HBM patents.

No they don't, none that say they own the technology. It's an SKHynix property

David Bisset · 16 Jul 2015 at 17:30

andybird123 said:
Actually, speed is relevant as it also relates to latency. Whilst slow wide ram will have the same throughput as thin fast ram, if you have less data to process as with 1080p vs higher resolutions, the bus width is less of an advantage, so processing thinner widths faster means your actual latency and throughput is better with the faster ram.

With memory running at 500mhz, each access takes a minimum of 2ms... With memory running at 6000mhz each access takes 0.16ms, so yeah where you need high throughput they even out, but at lower throughput levels gddr has a clear advantage.

This is likely why AMD talk about better memory management being needed with hbm, as they need to rework the memory loads to try to maximise the data being read each pass and minimise the number of calls

Access times don't work like that (It's not a one clock cycle to access system, same as DDR3 etc are not)

For reference, GDDR5 gets about CAS = 10.6ns tRCD = 12ns tRP = 12ns tRAS = 28 ns tRC = 40ns. This is actually bit worse than DDR3 as latency is traded off for bandwidth.

I don't have a data sheet for HBM to compare unfortunately

AMD themselves say it's better than GDDR5 but I can't verify that one way or another - likely to be not dissimilar as it's still DRAM underneath.

Also if they did work like you were suggesting then 500MHz would give you a time of 2ns not 2ms

and the 6000MHz stuff would be at an incredible 0.17ns, nowhere near what it actually is.

mmj_uk · 16 Jul 2015 at 17:47

If AMD are still around a year from now they'll probably need all of the anti-competitive advantages they can get just to remain competitive.

r7slayer · 16 Jul 2015 at 18:07

arknor said:
most the AAA titles avoided then

It's funny because i know a lot of friends with nVidia cards who do the same as me. They have had such bad experience with gamework games so they avoid them on release. And not most at all.

Killer7xx · 16 Jul 2015 at 18:28

Silent_Scone said:
No they don't, none that say they own the technology. It's an SKHynix property

AMD has a patent for the HBM memory controller http://www.google.com/patents/US20130346695

HBM itself is an open standard so Hynix, Samsung, Micron, etc can all manufacture it, but the memory controller required to make it work is patented by AMD.

fs123 · 16 Jul 2015 at 18:42

mmj_uk said:
If AMD are still around a year from now they'll probably need all of the anti-competitive advantages they can get just to remain competitive.

If Nvidia need to license a HBM controller from AMD that is normal business, nothing anti-competitive about it. Ask MS how they are using Bluray from Sony. Nvidia can also develop their own controller as long as it doesn't infringe on any patents.

arknor · 16 Jul 2015 at 18:46

Killer7xx said:
AMD has a patent for the HBM memory controller http://www.google.com/patents/US20130346695

HBM itself is an open standard so Hynix, Samsung, Micron, etc can all manufacture it, but the memory controller required to make it work is patented by AMD.

AMD arent charging for it though..

anyone remmeber rambus memory or whatever it was called.....

D.P. · 16 Jul 2015 at 18:47

Killer7xx said:
AMD has a patent for the HBM memory controller http://www.google.com/patents/US20130346695

HBM itself is an open standard so Hynix, Samsung, Micron, etc can all manufacture it, but the memory controller required to make it work is patented by AMD.

To be precise, AMD have a patent on a specific implementation of a memory controller to make it work.

The great thing about patents is they tell your competitors how you do something and they are then free to copy your idea with minor modifications without any legal issues, because their implementations are deemed different.
You never want to patent something you actually care about, you keep it a trade secret instead. Our company has a stack of patents for all the things we tried and realized were useless, but these can help block competitors. Our ideas that really worked well and gave us a competitive advantage are a trade secret.

Silent_Scone · 16 Jul 2015 at 19:36

Killer7xx said:
AMD has a patent for the HBM memory controller http://www.google.com/patents/US20130346695

HBM itself is an open standard so Hynix, Samsung, Micron, etc can all manufacture it, but the memory controller required to make it work is patented by AMD.

That's a bit abstract, it's a patent for the interposer design really. Nothing that will stop anyone from people using HBM technology.

It's not really an issue anyway - point was AMD hold no rights to the technology.